Wings of Dust (Adopted)
by Najio
Summary: First years at Beacon Dragonry are looking forward to flying with their partners for the first time—but with vengeful former allies coming back to haunt them, secret conspiracies looming in the shadows, and discontent rising among dragons and students alike, they're going to have a lot more to worry about than just their lessons... (Adopted from Solora Goldsun, updates Tue/Fri)
1. The Loneliest of All

***Peeks over garden hedge* Um... hi!**

**So... I've been following Wings of Dust for a while (quietly, from the bushes). It's a beautifully written story about dragons, and... well, I have a soul dammit! Of course I love it! The idea of it never getting an ending made me sad, so I started writing one.**

**If you haven't read this masterpiece yet, stop what you're doing and go fix that! (It should show up under my favorites, or you could just use the good old-fashioned search bar.) I can promise that _none _of what is about to follow will make sense on its own, since I don't want to rewrite/rehash what's already there.**

**Concerning the outline that was posted, I tried to strike a good balance between including lots of plot points, but also changing things and moving them around so that those who have read it will still be surprised. Hopefully that works out well!**

**Also, um... since this is someone else's story that I'm adopting, there's going to be bits of it that don't fit my strengths, exactly. Uh... ships. I'm talking about the ships. I don't know what to do with those. I've poked 'em with a stick before and it was quite fun, but I'm also kinda just... awkward around writing them. So! I will make my most valiant effort! But uh... well, honestly I'm mostly just glad the groundwork is already there, and that all these people are complete dorks about romance _anyway. _I figure I'll just write lots of emotional intimacy and cuddling and hope for the best. We'll see how it goes!**

**Right, last thing—as of the time I'm posting this I should have a decent buffer going, so I plan on updating this every Tuesday. So uh... yeah. Let's get right to it!**

* * *

**1\. The Loneliest of All**

* * *

Dawn broke slowly over Beacon. Watery sunlight filtered through crisp morning air, birds sang in the trees, and a lone fire dragon emerged from her stall to roam the grounds.

The first students stirred. Nora slid out of bed and tickled Ren's face with a piece of string, to see how long it would take for him to notice. Sun twitched in his sleep, turning over so that his tail hung down over the edge of his bed and collected dust bunnies.

In RWBY's dorm, a cheerful electronic jingle started to play. Very insistently.

Blake opened one eye to locate the source of the disturbance. The other was still gummed shut with sleep. "Weiss... Make it stop." A hand emerged from Weiss' blankets and slapped half-heartedly at her scroll. It fell to the floor with a thump, still making the noise. Dark muttering started from somewhere under the mass of Yang's hair.

Ruby groaned and jammed a pillow over her head. A second passed. Then, finally, the sound stopped. There was silence. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to think sleepy thoughts—soft blankets... warm milk... Professor Port's voice...

Their window was open—she could hear birdsong.

"Ugh... I can't go back to sleep."

Weiss twitched. "Ruby, no."

"I can't help it!"

Blake heaved a resigned sigh and swung her legs out of bed. "Classes start in..." She checked her own scroll. "...four hours."

"Weiss." It was Yang's first coherent word of the day. "Why...?"

"It was a _call, _not an alarm. I didn't set it on purpose."

"This is the second time! _Shut off the ringer!"_

"I _can't!" _Weiss snatched her scroll off the floor and slammed it down on her bedside table. "What if something happens and one of you needs to contact me?"

"So block the number! And who the hell is calling you at five in the morning?!"

There was a tense, awkward silence. "I can't do that either." Weiss fled into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

"I'm gonna feed that thing to Fang, I swear..."

Ugh. It was too early for this. It was too early for _anything, _even by Ruby's standards. The sun still wasn't all the way up yet. "Yang, she's right. If someone comes after Blake and we can't reach her—"

"I know, I know."

Being up this early wouldn't have been _so _bad, except they weren't supposed to leave their dorm until eight. Ruby's teammates spent that time doing homework, reading, or giving up and napping. She tried first one, then the next, then faceplanted on her bed. It wasn't much use—once she was up, she was up.

Two minutes before eight, Blake's scroll beeped. Ruby dashed over to the window, stuck her head out, and waved.

"Hey Mocha!"

Several stories below, a pair of dark brown eyes blinked back at her. Mocha let out an answering bugle and wiggled a forepaw, mimicking Ruby's wave.

It had only been a couple weeks since Junior's warning, but Ozpin had already set up a makeshift security system. They couldn't get official help, since they couldn't tell anyone official _why _someone might be after Blake, but he'd recruited a few of the older students and their dragons to walk them to their classes. It had taken a long time for Velvet to stop asking questions. Coco still hadn't.

Together, they made their way down the stairs that led to the courtyard. "I still think this is pointless," Blake grumbled. "It's not like the three of you plus all four of our dragons isn't enough protection."

Yang tried for a grin. "More security is better, right?"

"More _people _definitely isn't."

"Between classes is when you're most at risk," Weiss pointed out. "The professors' dragons are patrolling around the dorms and besides, he has no way of knowing which room we're in. Plus, well, he'd have to be a complete moron to try anything in the middle of class."

"I know."

"Better to overestimate how many people and dragons we'll need than vice versa."

"I _know." _She sighed, ran a hand through her hair. "I'm just... this is exhausting."

Weiss winced, glancing guiltily at her pocket. "I can turn it off at night, if you need me to. I just worry about forgetting—"

"That's not what I meant."

"Uh." Yang raised a hand. "I definitely wouldn't mind that. Just saying."

"I wasn't asking _you."_

Ruby pushed the door open. The argument trailed off into nothing when they walked outside and were greeted by Mocha and her rider.

"Hi Yatsu!"

He smiled and patted Storm on the nose. "Hello, and good morning."

"Nothing good about it," Yang grumbled. _"Someone _had to wake us up at—"

"I don't control when h—when my scroll goes off!"

"Would both of you drop it?!" Blake snapped. "It happened, it's over, can we _please _just go to class?" She strode off towards the open field where their flying lessons were held. Ruby and the others had to jog to catch up with her, and when they finally did she ducked her head and sped up.

"My apologies," Yatsu said, "But I believe we're supposed to stay with you, in case something happens."

"Right. Sorry."

She slowed down, but stayed a few paces ahead of the rest of them until they got to class. Yatsu left them with a final wave, and Ruby had to part ways with her teammates—the wind dragons would be able to fly with riders sooner than the rest, so they were way ahead of the others on the theoretical stuff they had to learn first.

Ruby shot a last concerned look over her shoulder at Blake, who winced when she noticed. _Oops._

Maybe they could try doing something to help her relax later. She liked books... reading night in the dorm? A trip to Vale for—okay, no, that was a terrible idea. Ruby scuffed the ground with her boot. It had only been a couple weeks and she was already going stir crazy. She couldn't even imagine how cooped up Blake must be feeling.

_It's only temporary._ That Adam guy had to get caught at some point, and when he did they could all head into Vale to celebrate. _Yeah._

* * *

"Nneh... Nnehh—" Nymph tried to pop the 'p' in Neptune's name, but only ended up blowing a raspberry.

"Give it a rest, will you?" Huo flicked his tail irritably. His sister had been stuck on the same syllable of her rider's name for weeks now. He'd say it was getting annoying, but it had already _been _annoying when she started.

"Oh, shut up. You're not even trying!"

"Yeah, 'cause I think it's stupid."

The four of them, and their riders, were relaxing in the fields near the earth stables. The others' humans were still whining about the cold, though Sun had exchanged his winter coat for a sweatshirt, so Huo figured it probably wasn't as bad as they were making it out to be.

Zircon hissed and let his head flop to the floor. "I still can't get farther than that..." Sage gave him a pat on the nose anyway. Nimbus mimicked the noise, then shook his head and snorted.

"Please," Huo scoffed. "It can't be _that _hard."

"Maybe if I skip that part..." Nymph drew herself up and said, "Nneh... Tuh..."

Neptune let out a little squeal and hugged her around the neck. "Guys! Guys, did you hear that?"

"Nneh... Ooh..." Her rider squealed again.

"It looks like they're all trying." Sun grinned at Neptune. "Except Huo."

"I'm sure he'll figure it out," Sage assured him. Huo growled. He could talk if he _wanted _to.

Nimbus perked his head up. "So we can just skip the hard parts?"

"Sage's name is _all _hard parts," Zircon groaned.

"Ahh..." Nimbus tried. "Ahh... Ahh... _Arr!"_ Within seconds he had his rider hanging off his neck, too, while Sun and Neptune started laughing.

"Arr, mate-y!" Sun said, clapping Scarlet on the shoulder. "Have yeh a bottle o' rum?"

"Don't listen to him," Scarlet cooed at Nimbus. "You're amazing!"

"I don't get what all the fuss is about," Huo complained. Fighting was hard—this was just _talking. _Besides, none of them had actually gotten the names right. Not the way the humans said them.

Nymph arched her neck haughtily and said, "Nneh... Tuh," again.

Indignant, Huo rose up onto his haunches. Then he looked his sister dead in the eye. Paused for effect.

"Sun," he said—perfectly, and smugly, on the first try. Sun yelped and slid down from where he was leaning against Huo's side.

"Did he just—"

"It's really not that hard," he told his sister. She glowered at him.

"That's because _your _rider's name is easy to pronounce."

"I still think you're all just wimps."

"Why don't _you _try Neptune's name, then?"

Huo puffed himself up and smirked. "Nnn." Okay, fine, maybe this was a little harder, but—"Nnnuh. Nneh!"

All of his siblings were laughing at him now, though Zircon was trying to hide it behind a wing.

_"Nnneh—_fuck!"

Their riders were in hysterics. Even Sun, who patted him affectionately on the shoulder and said, through fits of laughter, "Figures he only says my name when he's trying to prove a point."

* * *

On the same day, on a different continent, the sun had only just struggled up over the rim of Atlas to light its surface instead of its underside. Solitas didn't get much sunlight during winter at the best of times—it was only in the last month or so that the day had gotten longer than six hours. Today it had even less, since it had been snowing heavily since yesterday afternoon.

Whitley watched the storm from his window, the snowflakes melting whenever they touched the glass. It was fogged over from his breathing. The world outside was muffled and whisper-soft. Hushed, like it was holding its breath. Waiting.

He'd stood by this same window last September, when the sun hadn't set properly in months—just dipped languidly behind the mountains for a few hours, then rose again before its stain left the clouds.

He was in bed the night after Weiss left for Beacon, taking advantage of the darkest part of the twilight hours to finally get some sleep. Whitley always hated that about summer—it wasn't until after eleven that his room finally got to be pitch dark, even with the blinds drawn.

Then Glacier had started howling. He groaned and pulled his pillow over his head, wishing the stupid dragon would get the message already. Father had tried to keep the stupid lizard quiet, but the next night—just when it got darkest, at the _exact worst time_—he let out the same long, high-pitched sound. It was almost pretty, like ringing crystal, but he wouldn't stop until Father came and made him.

On the third night, Whitley gave up. He rolled out of bed, put on his warmest coat, and threw the window open. A frigid draft rolled over him, banishing any hope he might have had of sleep. Glacier's voice was clearer, and he realized with a shock that it wasn't just howling. He was alternating between three notes.

Whitley pulled himself up onto the window seat and leaned partway out the window, breathing the freezing air and listening to Glacier sing. He was chilled to the bone within seconds, but he didn't move to shut the window and go back to bed. Instead he just sat there, staring at the closest thing Solitas currently had to a night sky.

A hot tear rolled down one numbed cheek, and he wiped it furiously away. He pitied Glacier, that was all. It was hard not to—he must be feeling very alone right now.

"Get over it," he told the dragon. "She's not coming back."

Minutes later, Glacier's voice cut off abruptly. Whitley waited for a while, and when the song didn't start again he closed the window and crawled back into bed.

Glacier had been silent at night, after that. Whitley wondered if the dragon had somehow heard him, then dismissed the idea as being idiotic. He got back into the swing of his lessons. Proper night returned, then swelled up and strangled the daylight. Snow fell. He stopped going outside.

Mother, now confined to the manor like just about everyone else, drifted through the halls like a wobbly ghost. Whitley got into the habit of leaving his window open at night, on the off chance that Glacier would sing again. Father went on a long business trip to Mistral to escape the weather, and missed the night in January when the northern lights descended on the manor.

Glacier sang again that night. It went on for hours, until Whitley had to slam the window shut and run into the bathroom to wash his hands and face with hot water—only to thaw them out!

Now Father was back, and the manor had settled into its usual routine once the winter night was over. Whitley held his hand over the latch, then sighed and let it fall. There wasn't much point. It hadn't happened since the night with the aurora, it wasn't going to start again tonight. Glacier had finally gotten over it. He'd shut up for good.

Two minutes later, Whitley grabbed his coat and walked out into the hall.

By now there had been a few sunny days warm enough to melt a bit of the snow that had fallen during the winter. Traveling the grounds still wasn't for the faint of heart, which was why most of the buildings were connected with tunnels—the exception being the three dragon stables. There wasn't really a need for them to have an easy route to the manor, since the only ones that went there regularly were the stable hands. And giving them access to the house itself in the dead of winter, when snow blocked all the exits... Whitley shivered.

Still, it would've made what he was about to do much easier. Which was really only yet another reason why those tunnels _shouldn't _exist, since he had definitely lost his mind and was making a huge mistake. He ought to turn back. Now.

Whitley slipped out a side door. The wind cut right through every layer he was wearing—it felt like it went right through his skin, too. He foundered for a moment in the snow, which still reached his calves despite the fact that all the manor's walkways had been shoveled just this morning. People would be out clearing them again soon. He picked up the pace.

He was red-faced and shivering by the time he arrived at Glacier's stable, and a misstep had left him with a clump of snow in his boot. It still hadn't finished melting into his sock. There was no possible way he wouldn't be sick by tomorrow morning.

As cold as he was, Whitley stopped to stare at the doors. Would the stable hands have gone home by now? He wasn't sure if there were any posted to make sure Glacier was comfortable during the night. Did one dragon alone really warrant that sort of attention? How hard was it to look after a fully grown ice dragon?

"How long are you planning on standing there?"

Whitley let out a high-pitched yelp and tipped over backwards into the snow. He flailed, managed to dump some of it down his collar, and finally went still just in time to see a hand extended towards him. It stopped about a foot short of his chest. He finally realized he was supposed to take it, and then the stable hand deposited him on both feet on the path outside the stable.

"You may as well come in, now," he said, frowning critically at Whitley. "It's no greenhouse, but it's warmer than out here."

"I—" Whitley caught sight of the man's fox ears and stopped mid-sentence.

"I'm Rusty." The faunus backed up to the stable doors, holding them open. "I can call someone up at the house, if you like. They'll send—"

"No!" He coughed into his hand. "That won't be necessary. I was..." Whitley looked around, hoping a plausible reason for being in this part of the grounds would present itself.

"You wanna see Glacier."

There wasn't much point in lying, not when there was nothing else out here. Whitley nodded.

Rusty frowned, glancing over his shoulder into the stable. "He's been testier than normal lately. Your sister almost lost a hand last time she was here. _Don't _get close. Y'hear me?"

Whitley nodded quickly. He could hardly _believe _this man was actually doing this. Wasn't he worried someone would find out? Well, _Whitley _certainly wouldn't tell, but that was only because he'd have to explain what he'd been doing out here first.

The inside of the stable was warmer than the grounds, but not by much. Rusty watched him shiver for a moment before sighing and shedding his overcoat. "Take it."

"But—"

"C'mon. I'll get in trouble if you freeze on me."

Whitley lay his own jacket on the door of one of the empty stalls to dry. Rusty's coat was much too big for him, scruffy and patched and smelling like hay. He scratched his shoulder and hoped he wouldn't get fleas. But the longer it sat on his shoulders the more he found he liked the weight of it, and it was much warmer than it looked.

Finally he worked up the courage to look at Glacier. Rusty opened a window in the stable door for him, then held out an arm almost eight feet away from it. Whitley stood behind it, craning his neck to try and catch a glimpse of Father's dragon.

"Say hello, Glacier," Rusty called.

There was a rustle from inside the stall. Then nothing.

"Shame. Nothin' to do with you, though. He's never liked people much, and it's only gotten worse lately."

"You said he almost bit Weiss."

"Not bit." Rusty sighed, and his breath fogged in the air. "Froze."

"At least he let her get that close," Whitley grumbled. "Glacier—"

There was a flash of white through the stall window. Then a single eye was staring at him with a cold intensity that made his breath catch in his throat. It was blue, not icy blue like Father's but deep and dark. A thin layer of ice over a lake that went down and down...

"Back up." Whitley bristled at being ordered around by a stable hand, but a moment later he was glad he'd obeyed. Something slammed against the door, hard, and white mist drifted out into the stable. Even from several feet away he could feel the temperature drop. He shivered and drew Rusty's coat tighter around himself.

"Best get back. He's not in a good mood tonight."

Whitley retreated to the other side of the stable. His teeth were chattering. "I w-want to know why he d-doesn't sing anymore."

Rusty took Whitley's coat down from the stall door, beating the snow off of it with one gloved hand. "He's muzzled at night, now. Kept waking your daddy."

"Oh."

From then on, Whitley slept with his window firmly shut.


	2. First Flight

**Hello again!**

**Really quick, I wanted to say thank you for all the feedback! It's always appreciated, and it seems like there are a bunch of you who are interested in this, which is pretty neat. So uh... hope you enjoy!**

* * *

**2\. First Flight**

* * *

"Hey! Wake up, lazy butt!"

Nora threw open the door to Freya's stall and placed both hands on her hips, grinning. Her dragon twitched, then put a paw over her face.

"We're flying today!"

One eye blinked open, squinting against the early morning glare streaming in through the barn's windows.

"C'mon, aren't you excited?" Freya picked her head up and nuzzled at her face. Nora grabbed the dragon's neck in a hug, hung there for a moment, then dropped to her own two feet and started bouncing in place. "Let's go!"

Freya followed her, even breaking into a loping jog once they were out of the stable. Nora giggled in delight and raced after her, stopping only to grab a passing Ruby by the arm and shout, "We're flying!"

Excitement spread like wildfire among the wind riders. Storm almost bowled Ruby over by accident coming out of the stalls, and together the two of them raced ahead of everyone else. Nimbus ran circles around a laughing Scarlet, then bumped into a wind dragon Nora didn't know. The pair of them chased each other's tails for a few seconds before bounding off in opposite directions. It was the _best _kind of chaos.

They passed their teams about halfway to the fields—the fields where they were going to learn to _fly, _right now!—and slowed down for a moment to greet them.

"Good luck!" Sage put a hand on Scarlet's shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be the first ones in the air."

"Yeah we will!" Nimbus perked up his head fins and let out a triumphant crowing noise.

"I'm so jealous," Yang said, for the third time since Professor Oobleck's announcement last week. "Seriously. I might knock one of you out and take your place."

Storm flicked her tail and narrowed her eyes, as if to say, _'Try me!'_

Nora snickered. "I think they'd notice that pretty quick."

"Remember to check all your tack first," Ren reminded her.

"I know!"

"I know you do, but you tend to forget things when you get excited."

Nora did remember to check her tack—and if she was maybe rushing a little bit, she definitely wasn't the only one. Then their group of wind dragons and riders crossed the rest of the distance between them and the field where they'd be learning to ride at a dead sprint. Even Freya was keeping up, sometimes pulling ahead of her rider and looking over her shoulder with her pale green eyes shining.

"This is happening!" Nora cheered when they finally made it to the field. There were ramps set up, and Professor Oobleck was leaning on the shoulder of his dragon, Gust.

"Now, now!" he called out. "I understand that you're all excited, but the sooner you all settle down, the sooner I can get the day's instructions out of the way... and the sooner we can get to the fun part!"

Their entire class went silent. Oobleck chuckled. "Yes, this is a day I'm sure you'll all remember for the rest of your lives! You will be riding your dragons—"

Nora whooped, then clamped a hand over her mouth and grinned sheepishly.

He just smiled at her. "I know you're eager to get right to it. But first... have you all checked your tack?"

Groans from among the assembled students.

"If not, do so now—I'd rather not have to catch any falling students this morning." Nobody moved. "Good. Check it one last time. Better to find loose straps on the ground than a hundred feet in the air!"

He waited while their class went over every strap and buckle. Freya's eyelids started to droop, until Nora surprised her with a kiss on the nose. Then she checked the bit and gave her dragon a thumbs-up.

"Now, there are three ramps. I'd like you to form a line at each one—and no shoving, please!"

Nora managed to snag a spot right at the front of one line. She pulled her riding goggles over her eyes and swung into the saddle. As she breathed in the smell of the leather saddle and riding chaps, combined with the scent of dragon, she felt her heart skip a beat.

"You'll take off three at a time, so that Gust and I can keep an eye on you when you first get into the air." Oobleck's eyes twinkled. "And, without further ado..." He climbed into his own saddle, and Gust leapt into the air, flapping heavily. "The three in front—as soon as you're ready!"

Even before he finished the sentence, Nora urged Freya forward. They sprinted together along the ramp. Her heart beat faster and faster as they neared the end, until she could hear the blood roaring in her ears. The ground dropped away, she felt Freya's muscles tense... and she _leaped!_

For a second it was like floating—two great wings rose on either side of her, spread wide but not flapping yet. Nora could hear the wind rushing over Freya's scales, whipping through her hair and beating against her cheeks until they went numb. Then the wings came down, and they were _soaring, _and she was pretty sure somebody had replaced all her guts with helium. She felt wonderfully light as Freya banked to the side, gliding easily in a wide arc over the other student's heads.

Nora leaned sideways and saw that Ruby and Storm had taken off too. She almost stood up in the saddle, then thought better of it and waved with both arms instead.

Scarlet and Nimbus were more towards the back of the line. She didn't recognize the other boy that had just taken off with her and Ruby, but he hadn't managed to stay in the air. He and his dragon were walking back around to the end of the line, both looking put out.

"You're amazing," Nora told Freya, scratching the scales at the base of her neck. "You know that?"

Freya hummed contentedly. She also started losing altitude. "Um..."

They landed gently on the grass, and Freya promptly sat down and rested her head on her paws. Nora dismounted and scratched her under the chin. "Yeah, I know you're tired. But we can go again in a little bit, right?"

Her dragon gave her a long, slow blink, then nodded.

"Yes!" Nora kissed her nose again. "To the ramp!"

Freya yawned, then got up and padded after her. Nora didn't mind the line—today was already the best day ever!

* * *

"Almost time, sweetie!"

Nimbus' tail thrashed in the grass behind him. He saw two of Scarlet, drifting slightly out of focus. His excitement was making his vision blurry, so he ran a quick lap around his rider to calm himself.

This was _it!_ Finally, after all the lessons with Gust and weight training and preparation, he could show Scarlet what it was like up in the sky! His tail sped up, and he had to trap it between his front paws to keep it still.

He felt like he'd been waiting _forever, _mostly because he'd been ready to carry his rider's weight for almost two weeks. Gust said their riders had lots to learn before they could fly, too. It seemed to Nimbus like all they really had to do was not fall off, but he supposed if all the older dragons told him there was more to it, they were probably right.

The dragon in front of him took off running down the ramp. Nimbus let out an excited roar, and his tail escaped his paws and started wagging again. Scarlet laughed and patted the side of his neck. "Time to mount up."

"Arr!" Nimbus licked his face, and his partner beamed at him. Then he clambered up into the saddle. It felt completely different from the weights—those were just bags of sand tied to his back. Scarlet moved, and he kept petting his neck, and he was sure that if he waited any longer to take off he'd just _explode!_

"Next!"

With a triumphant bugle, Nimbus took off down the ramp. For a second he got so excited he forgot to close his misbehaving eye. Then he tilted his head and tore across the last few meters, launching himself and his rider into the air. Air rushed over his wings and head fins—all the little sensations of flying he'd gotten used to suddenly felt new as Scarlet gasped, then started laughing with pure joy.

Nimbus banked left and dove, sweeping over the trees on the northern edge of the field. Scarlet whooped and cheered. He rose higher, spotted Storm, and chased after her. They raced each other in circles around the field, their riders cheering them on, until Gust and Oobleck called the lesson to an end.

Reluctantly, he landed between Storm and Freya and let Scarlet dismount. His red hair was sticking out in all directions, and when he pushed his goggles up onto his forehead they left little pink rings around his eyes. He flapped his hands, squeaked a few times, then threw both arms around Nimbus' neck. He purred, nuzzling his rider's head.

Who would have thought that flying could get even _better?_

* * *

This was definitely Jaune's new favorite place to be.

Twiggy was at his back, curled up with her snout under his left arm. Pyrrha pressed against his right side, leaning her head on his shoulder, while Titan lay on his back with his head at her feet. In front of them Beacon's campus dropped away into the Emerald forest, and the sun was going down in a riot of reds and golds.

"It's gorgeous, isn't it?" Pyrrha murmured. Her shoulder was very, very warm. Jaune nodded until he was a little worried he might hurt his neck.

"Gud," Twiggy agreed, and started to purr. Jaune felt the vibration of it all through his chest. His heartbeat slowed, and his eyes drifted halfway shut. He'd happily go to sleep right now and stay this way forever.

Titan's ears flicked, and he picked his head up from where it had been resting on his forepaws. Then he made a strange noise, almost like a horse puffing out a breath.

"Uh... you okay Titan?"

Pyrrha giggled. "He's fine. Professor Port says Pepper used to do the same thing. Apparently he's trying to make a 'P' sound."

"Oh!" Jaune grinned as Titan made the noise again, then let out a frustrated huff.

"I suppose I don't have the most dragon-friendly name."

"Me neither. At least, not really. Usually they just shorten it to—"

"Awn!"

"...Yeah, that."

Pyrrha smiled at him. "I think it's sweet."

"Way better than my sisters' nicknames for me, that's for sure."

She laughed again, half-muffled behind her hand. Then she rubbed Titan's head, right between his horns. "You could do that too, you know."

"Pppbbt!"

Jaune and Pyrrha both lost it at that. By the time they managed to stop laughing, Titan had put a paw over his head.

"I'm sorry," Pyrrha said, still smiling. "But you don't need to be embarrassed. It isn't your fault that some sounds are more difficult for you to say... or that my name happens to start with one of them."

Titan lifted the paw enough to blink at her a few times. Then, hesitantly, "Rruh."

Pyrrha's eyes lit up, and she opened her mouth to congratulate Titan—but he wasn't done.

"Eeh... Earr-rah!"

"Oh my—Titan! That was wonderful!"

Titan preened, lifting his head up and letting his eyes drift shut as she scratched his chin. Under Jaune's arm, Twiggy started purring again. The whole scene was backlit by the setting sun, the last of its rays catching in Pyrrha's hair, and he wanted to capture this moment more than anything else in the world. Not a photograph, but a little glass ball he could hold in his hands and look into, and feel the warmth and the vibration of his dragon's purr, and hear the laughter and Titan proudly repeating, "Earr-rah! Earr-rah!"

Or—and this was a much better idea—he should just ask Pyrrha about coming out here more often. All the time, if possible.

"Hey," he said, bumping her shoulder with his own. "I was just thinking—"

His scroll started to buzz.

"Whoops." He fumbled with it for a second, turned off the ringer. "Sorry. I was just wonder if maybe we could—"

More buzzing. Pyrrha, this time. She frowned, checked the screen. "It's Ruby."

Jaune's went off again. He pulled it out—Weiss—and answered. "Hey, what's—"

"Jaune! Is Blake with you?"

"What? Why would she be with us?"

"I don't know!" He winced, held the scroll a little further from his ear. "I just—have you seen her at all?"

"Wait, she's missing?!"

"She was _here _just a minute ago! We turned around and—just get over here and help us look! And call Sage and Scarlet."

"But—" She hung up.

Beside him, Pyrrha was staring blankly at her own scroll. Their eyes met. Both of them scrambled to their feet and tore off across campus, with their confused dragons loping along behind them. And all the while the sun continued to set, staining the sky the deep purple of a bruise.

* * *

Out behind the earth stables, Sky Lark finished hauling another bale of hay off the towering pile. He dragged it away, either not hearing or choosing to ignore the slight rustle as two pale yellow eyes slid further into the shadows behind the mountain of hay.

Once he was gone, Pit let out a quiet croon and tried to curl himself into an even smaller ball. He stuck his head under one tightly furled wing, nuzzling at Blake's side. She clung to his nose, and he could feel her heartbeat. He was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to go that fast.

"Lake," he murmured, and her breath hitched. "Lake... safe."

"I know." He couldn't see her face to know if she was smiling—it was too dark under his wing—but her heart wasn't hammering quite so hard. Pit started to purr, wanting to surround her with the low, comforting noise.

"Safe," he repeated.

He still wasn't sure why they were here—they had run away from the others, so there _must _be a reason. Blake had seen something, or heard something, that he hadn't. But wouldn't she tell their friends?

"I'm sorry." Her voice vibrated in time with his purr as she scratched behind his ears. "I didn't mean to scare you. We're safe."

Pit stopped purring long enough to let out a questioning hum.

"I'm okay. Nothing's wrong. I just... needed a minute alone."

He lifted his wing, just enough to let some light in so that she could definitely see his expression.

"...I know. You're right. I'll go back soon."

Somewhere in the distance, a voice shouted, "Blake!"

She cringed, then shot him a pleading look. Pit narrowed his eyes.

The voice called again, and this time Pit recognized Weiss. Seconds later, he heard Ruby as well. He nudged Blake with one forepaw. She pressed a finger over her lips. He huffed, frustrated.

"What was that?"

_Oops._ Blake shot him a betrayed look. Pit pinned his ears back against his skull and hung his head in apology.

Slowly, he lifted his head up above the hay bales. Specter was only a few feet away, and stared at him like he'd just popped out of the ground.

"Pit!" he roared, his tail lashing happily back and forth. Storm trumpeted a greeting.

"Blake! Are you there?" Weiss made to start dismantling the haypile. Pit nudged her away with his nose—he'd feel bad making Sky or one of the other stable hands fix it—and picked Blake up by the back of her shirt.

"Pit, wait! I can climb out myself!"

He snorted, then deposited her directly between the two humans.

"What happened?" Weiss demanded, glancing around like she was expecting an attacker to jump out at any second. "Is he here?"

Blake winced. "No. I'm sorry, I just... sort of... panicked."

Pit huffed and bumped her back with his nose.

"It won't happen again?" she tried.

"Um..." Ruby scratched the back of her head. "So... is someone else here, or...?"

Blake shot him a pleading look. Pit prodded her again, prompting her to keep going.

"No," she admitted. "I just—I don't know, it was stupid but I just needed a second to breathe."

Both humans were silent for a moment. Ruby because she looked like she was still trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean. Weiss... Pit moved his head further away and folded his ears flat against his head.

Sure enough, "You _what?!"_

Pit cringed and put a paw over his ears—just folding them back had _not _been enough. Even Specter took a startled step back.

"I'm sorry! I don't know what I was thinking—"

"I find it _very _difficult to believe you were thinking at all! What if we hadn't found you so soon? Were you just going to keep—keep _skulking around _until—" Weiss was turning an alarming shade of red, and seemed to be having trouble speaking. Storm whined and hid her head behind Ruby.

Blake hung her head. "I was just going to stay there a few minutes."

"It's _been _a few minutes, Blake! Twelve, to be precise! And I know that because I kept checking the time and trying to figure out whether or not there was still a chance we'd find you _alive!"_

She seemed to deflate, tucking her elbows against her sides and folding her arms over her stomach. "You scared me. Us." Specter let out a few high-pitched whistles and nudged her shoulder.

"Weiss..."

"Come on." She whirled around and marched off towards Beacon's main buildings. "We need to call off the rest of the search party."

Blake followed, looking dejected. Pit purred some more and bumped her with his head. That had been scary—for someone so small, Weiss could be very loud. _But, _he thought, _at least it was over, right?_

Not once in his short life had he been more wrong.

Several minutes passed. There was a lot more yelling, this time from Professor Goodwitch, who was _almost _as loud and terrifying as Weiss had been. Then they were crammed into Dragonmaster Ozpin's office, along with Weiss, Ruby, Yang, and Professor Goodwitch. Pit curled his tail around his forepaws, his ears flat and his head low in submission.

"Well," Ozpin said, after a long moment. "This has been quite the scare. What happened?"

Blake swallowed. She reached a hand back, pressing it against Pit's shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said, "but... I can't do this. It's too much."

Ozpin frowned, leaning forward at his desk. "How so?"

"It's just... having people around me, all the time. Being under guard twenty-four seven. I keep jumping at shadows, I can't _sleep."_

"You _should _have mentioned your concerns to one of your professors," Goodwitch snapped.

"I know. I'm sorry."

Ozpin heaved a sigh. "I'm sure staying constantly on your guard is taxing, but until the danger has passed, I'm afraid it's necessary."

"It's not just that." Blake shifted from foot to foot. "Being around people all the time on top of that is too much. I need time alone. Or, not alone—" she said hurriedly, seeing Weiss' eyes narrow, "—but with Pit. Maybe in his stall? There'd be dragons all around me, I'd be safe."

Dragonmaster Ozpin nodded slowly. "Yes. I believe we could arrange that."

Blake perked up. "You mean—"

He laughed. "Miss Belladonna, these arrangements are for your own safety. You have every right to change them if they are making you uncomfortable. With that _said—_If you wish to spend some time alone with your dragon, that is perfectly fine, but you'd save us all a few grey hairs if you were to warn us first."

"Right." She glanced at Weiss' expression and cringed. "I'm sorry."

Pit left the office in much higher spirits than when he'd entered. Until today he hadn't gotten to spend any time alone with Blake since she'd left with the others to go to that dance club. He remembered when they'd all first moved out of their partners' dorms, and how they had all wanted to bring their partners with them into their new stalls. He would actually get to do it, if only for a little while at a time.

His tail wagged excitedly all the way back to his stall, and even in his sleep it went on twitching back and forth. He rolled over on his bed of sweet-smelling hay—warm, content. Safe.


	3. Jumping at Shadows

**Hello again!**

**Okay, so... I actually have some extra buffer chapters. That means I'm going to put another of these up on Friday, so uh... yeah! Keep an eye out for it.**

* * *

**3\. Jumping at Shadows**

* * *

A human boy walked alone in the deep shadows under the canopy of the Emerald Forest. He was unarmed and jumpy. His head swiveled back and forth, night-blind eyes straining in the dark.

Sienna stepped out behind him and said, "Well?"

He yelped and whirled around like a gun had gone off behind him. Once he saw her—or, more likely, Hazel standing behind her—he relaxed.

"It's rude to sneak up on people."

Nothing Sienna might have said to that would have been useful or diplomatic, so she ignored it. "Do you have information for us?"

"Yeah." He plopped down on a fallen log. "Might want to take a seat, 'cause this is gonna be a while."

Sienna grit her teeth. "Talk quickly, then." It was irritating enough to work with Hazel, and he was at least polite. She understood _why,_ of course—humans could be just as useful as faunus in the right conditions, and it would be a waste not to take advantage of every resource at their disposal. That didn't make it easy or pleasant.

To his credit, the human seemed to get the message. "There's been way more security lately. Not sure why, but if you've been doing anything near campus it looks like they noticed."

Adam must have been caught skulking—that was not a conversation she looked forward to.

"Patterns?" she prompted the human. "Names? Blind spots?"

"Here." He rummaged in his pocket and withdrew a square of paper. "I wrote down where I saw 'em and when. Figured out a bunch of shifts that repeat."

She took the paper, scanned it quickly to make sure he was telling the truth, then tucked it away. "Good. And Blake?"

Next to her, Hazel made a quiet noise in the back of his throat. He disapproved—but then, the man disapproved of almost everything.

"You said to report anything weird about her and her dragon, right? She's been staying in his stall almost a week now. About an hour a day. Maybe he's sick? Haven't really gotten the chance to ask."

"When?"

The boy hesitated. "Uh... usually around five? She leaves before it gets dark."

"This is useful," Sienna decided. "...Thank you."

She and Hazel left the clearing. The human would find his own way back—he should have the route memorized by now.

Once they were out of earshot Hazel said, "You're being polite. Why?"

"He's useful. I'd like him to stay that way." She had her pride, but she wasn't so insecure she couldn't muster an insincere 'thank you' to keep a useful informant around.

Speaking of which... "We need to talk to him."

Hazel raised an eyebrow. "We?"

She hesitated, trying to guess how much he would care about preserving the human alliance. In the end, it came down to the simple fact that she'd already _tried _talking to him alone. "Yes." Siding with Hazel against him left a bad taste in her mouth, but it was necessary.

Adam wouldn't see it that way. Part of her almost preferred dealing with the human stable hand.

It took around two hours to reach the camp proper. They were still dangerously close to Beacon as far as Sienna was concerned, but Adam wouldn't budge. He needed to be able to get there and back in a day, and that was that.

His tent was just behind their makeshift lab. Sienna didn't know how he could stand the smell—the acrid tang of Dust, which no matter what they did was always mixed with the scent of death. He met them outside, his arms folded across his chest.

"Well?"

Sienna handed him the human's report. "Information on the patrolling schedules of the professors."

"Good." He skimmed it, then folded it up again. "And the girl?"

"Staying with the hybrid in his stall, around an hour a day just before sunset. It could be he isn't viable after all, the stable hand thinks he's sick."

"That's all?"

"Yes."

"He knows who her friends are. He has to."

"Adam." He tensed, sensing the challenge in her voice. "You need to focus."

"We can't do nothing about a _traitor—"_

"She's been there for months. The damage is done. I know you want to settle things between you, but we have other responsibilities."

He didn't speak for a long moment. His posture was rigid, but she couldn't see his expression behind the mask. Frustrating.

Finally, "I'm going for a walk."

_Damn him._ "Adam, we need to talk about—"

"Fennac and Corsac have been handling the Dust mixtures. Ask them."

"And write down—"

"The map is on my desk. You can add the human's information to it now, or I'll do it when I come back. I don't care."

"Adam."

_"What?"_

"You're our leader because you're charismatic. Disappearing into the woods for hours on end makes you less charismatic."

"Is that a _threat?"_

She winced. It had come out sounding like one. "No. I'm telling you that you can't afford to get distracted. Our personal issues will have to wait until after we win this war. Too many people are counting on us. On you, especially."

He strode into his tent. There was a clatter—_I don't care what that was, I'm not cleaning it up_—and an angry shriek. Sienna tensed. Adam stormed back out a moment later, shoulder-checking Hazel as he passed. Brand crouched in the doorway, smoke oozing from between his jaws. There was a thick iron collar around his neck, though it wasn't fixed to anything at the moment. Not much point when he could tear the tent out of the ground if he wanted.

"It's alright," Hazel murmured. He stepped forward.

"Don't."

"What is it?" Brand growled, low and threatening. Hazel stopped, then carefully lowered himself to his knees. "What's wrong?"

"He doesn't like humans," Sienna said, hoping he'd get the hint.

Brand turned to her as she spoke and growled. He moved forward, crouching just in the doorway of the tent. Sienna backed up. "Hazel, _move."_

"He's hurt," Hazel said. "There's a cut, right there—" His hand twitched, probably an instinctive urge to point that he'd squashed. Brand noticed. He lunged, and the human only just dodged out of the way in time to save his arm. A bit of his sleeve caught in the creature's jaws as he retreated into the tent, his eyes glowing molten gold in the dark.

Hazel finally got the hint.

* * *

All Twiggy could hear was the thick, leathery sound of her own wings flapping. She clawed at the air, fighting to stay level. No matter what she did she sank further and further, lower and lower, her tail skimming the grass... Finally her forelegs hit the ground and she sprawled onto her side, spent.

There was another thud next to her, this one _much _heavier. She lifted her head just in time to see Pit flop unceremoniously onto his belly.

"Tired?" he asked.

Twiggy squirmed, trying to get to her feet. A moment later she gave up—she'd try again after a few minutes' rest. "I'm not even halfway there yet."

Pit rested his head on his forepaws. "You'll catch up."

"Easy for _you _to say."

"It's not." His tail flicked irritably. "I can hardly get off the ground with as much weight as I'm supposed to. They took some off last week."

Twiggy perked her head up a little. "You're having trouble too? But you're..." she trailed off. He'd been bigger and stronger than everyone else since they were babies. She supposed being a few days older had to mean less as they all grew up, but still.

"I'm too heavy," he admitted. "Too big for my wings, I mean. It's the same problem all earth dragons have, only worse."

She took a second to look at him more closely. His wingspan seemed similar to Zircon's, but he was taller and broader at the shoulder, and had more muscle. Pretty much the complete opposite of wind dragons like Freya.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think about that." She glanced at the silver freckles on his face, then checked to see if there were any other dragons in earshot. There weren't. "Could you use your powers?"

"Maybe..." He didn't seem to like the idea. "Not yet, though. We're supposed to be building up muscle to let us carry heavier loads. Having an easier time now will only make it harder later."

"Yeah." He was right... but she got the sense that wasn't the _real _reason he didn't want to try it.

"It's okay." His tail flicked back and forth and the muscles in his back legs tensed—like he was thinking about something that made him want to pounce. "I don't need to be able to carry much weight. Just Blake."

Twiggy curled her wings around herself. "I'm scared. What if I stop growing before I'm big enough to carry Jaune?"

"You won't," Pit said confidently. "Think about it. You're carrying half as much weight as the others right now. Adult dragons like Pepper can carry two riders, and half of two is one. So even if you and I never get _as _good at flying as the rest, we'll at least be able to fly with our partners."

Twiggy stared at him for a long moment. It had never occurred to her to think about the problem that way, but it made sense. She perked up. "Yeah!"

She was about to ask him where he'd gotten the idea to use numbers like that when she heard another dragon approaching behind them. They both shot to their feet, exhaustion temporarily forgotten.

Pepper snorted approval. "It's important to rest when you need it," she said, "but make sure you get back in the air as soon as you can. Conditioning is important—working hard now means you'll be able to maneuver better in the air with your rider!"

Twiggy and Pit both trotted back to the ramps. The weights on her back were still awfully heavy, but her heart felt much lighter. She would work as hard as she could, and even if she couldn't carry quite as much as the others, at least she'd be able to fly with Jaune—and at least she wasn't the only one struggling.

* * *

Water roared as it plummeted down the cliff face. The air smelled of damp earth and moss, and overhead the trees were just starting to show their new leaves. Somewhere nearby, a trio of birds were singing to one another.

Zircon poked his nose out. Slowly... _slowly..._ he stuck out his tongue. It touched the water and he pulled back with a yelp. _Cold!_

On the other side of the waterfall, Nimbus had stuck most of his head in the water to drink. Zircon stuck his snout under, then sneezed. _Very cold!_

There was a quiet giggle from behind him. He turned, his ears perking up. Sage and Scarlet were both lying in a huge, earthy dip between several rocks. Moss had grown over the rocks and all through the dip, and Zircon had quickly learned that it was softer and smelled even better than the fragrant hay in his stall.

Sage had taken off his shoes to curl his toes in the moss, and was trying to persuade Scarlet to do the same. Zircon wandered over, then lay his head next to his partner and sighed contentedly.

He hadn't liked the idea of being in the Emerald Forest very much at first, but Sage had assured him that the only reason their little spot wasn't part of campus was that it happened to be on the wrong side of the cliffs. Older dragons and their partners cleared the Grimm away regularly—the last time one had been seen this close to the school had been before even Ragnar had hatched.

Zircon still made sure to keep an eye out. After a moment he lifted his head and searched the area, ears pricked for any sound. There was a lot of it, mostly because Nimbus was barking and running in circles and Scarlet was laughing. Nothing dangerous. He glanced up the cliff, to where he could just see some roots from the forest above curling over the edge. None of the rocks looked like they might fall.

Satisfied, he put his head back down and purred when Sage draped an arm over his nose. Moss and dirt were wonderful, but nothing made him feel as safe as his partner's scent.

"Hi," he said. His partner smiled and scratched behind his ears.

Soon Zircon was curled up around Sage and Scarlet and sinking into soft moss. Rocks rose up around them like a tiny wall, shielding them from the outside world. Nimbus wandered over to see where all the others had gone, then lay down on Scarlet's other side. It was cramped with all four of them there together, and Zircon was a little worried about squishing the moss, but right then he decided there was nowhere else in the world that was better than this.

His eyes drifted slowly shut as he relaxed, listening to the sound of the waterfall. The sun was just starting to go down. Zircon wished it wouldn't—he didn't want to leave yet. Maybe if he and Nimbus took turns keeping watch they could sleep here...

_Watch!_ Zircon's eyes snapped open. He'd almost dozed off. This place was nice, but it was still the Emerald Forest. He poked his head up to scan the area around him.

A twig snapped, and Zircon's head swiveled towards the noise. He saw a flash of something disappearing further into the forest. Something black and red. _Grimm _were supposed to be black and red, and now that he was thinking about it he thought he might have seen horns!

"Zircon?" Sage patted his shoulder. "What's—?"

He leaned down, grabbed his partner's shirt in his mouth, and deposited him safely on his back.

"Grr!"

"It's alright," Scarlet said. "It's just us, see?"

"I saw one of the monsters!" Zircon told Nimbus. "We have to run!"

"But Scarlet said—"

"I saw it!"

Nimbus looked around, but his eye always acted up when he was nervous so Zircon wasn't sure how much he could actually see. Not that it really mattered, since the monster had already disappeared into the woods. He curled his tail around himself, tensing, wondering what it was doing. Would it try to circle around? Were there _more?_

After a moment of Nimbus nudging his rider to get him to climb on, he and Zircon took off running towards the path back to Beacon. It took longer on the ground than it would if they could just fly up the cliff, but Zircon couldn't carry Sage yet and even the wind dragons hadn't learned how to take off without a ramp.

When they finally reached the safety of the grounds, Zircon put his partner back on the ground and wrapped him up in his wings, hugging him close to his chest.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Scarlet asked.

"Grr!" Nimbus tried.

"Grr... mm," added Zircon.

It took a second, but Scarlet's eyes flew open wide. "Wait, _here?" _He glanced towards the cliff's edge. "We should report that to Ozpin."

"Agreed," said Sage, his voice slightly muffled. "Just... give us a minute."

Zircon nuzzled him, inhaling the scent that meant he was safe. They would tell Ozpin and Ragnar, and they would get rid of the Grimm, and... and they wouldn't go back to the Emerald Forest anymore.

His tail drooped. He'd really started to like that spot.

* * *

Rudder and Justice lay curled up together on a hill overlooking Haven's campus. Steam rose from the fire dragon as he heated his scales. Neither said a word. They were simply enjoying each other's company in silence, looking at the stars... betraying their riders.

Whisper pulled her neck back and slunk away, wishing she hadn't seen.

It didn't matter. She had an actual job to do, so she needed to focus. She prowled through the shadows, sniffing the air, and caught the scent of another dragon. Not one of her brothers, this time. It was late, and most of the students were asleep. This had to be the one she was supposed to watch.

When Whisper approached, she spotted the fire dragon with rich reddish-brown scales Neo had told her about. Paprika. There were two humans with her. "Dragonmaster Lionheart still hasn't told me anything," her rider said. He huddled close to his dragon, stroking her nose. "Useless old bastard. He hasn't even _tried _to find out who told them! When I get my hands on that filthy snitch, they're going to wish they'd never been _born."_

"Char—" The other rider started to say, but Char cut them off.

"I _knew _I should've gone to Beacon! Lionheart probably hasn't got off his knees in years, too busy—"

"Char!" They seized him by the shoulders. "It'll be okay. He said he was going to talk to them about Paprika."

"What good will _that _do?!" Char started pacing, and Paprika let out a low croon. "She can't use her powers without hurting herself. The council won't understand, and I don't need you spouting the old man's bullshit at me! I get enough of that as it is."

"I'm just trying to help."

Char slumped. "I'm sorry, Lu."

"Me too, but you shouldn't talk like that. You're scaring her."

He sighed and stroked Paprika's nose again. "Sorry, girl. I won't let anything happen to you."

_"We _won't," Lu added.

"Yeah. We."

"When... when's the verdict due?"

"They said next week, but Lionheart told me he can delay it a bit." Char scoffed. "That's all he's good for."

"Okay, well... that means we have a couple weeks to figure something out, right? Maybe if we get enough people—"

"Nobody cares, Lu." Char hugged both arms around himself, shivering. "They're too scared of the council looking closer at _their _dragons to do anything."

"Try." Lu grabbed his hand. "Please?"

Char nodded at the ground. They released him, bouncing on the balls of their feet. "Great! Tomorrow we can get the whole team together and figure out a plan. Okay?"

"...Okay."

Whisper watched them for several more minutes. Then, when it became clear they weren't going to say anything else important, she crept away.

Neo was waiting for her in their spot, a small unused shed on the edge of the campus. She drew Whisper's head close and breathed into her ear, "W-will they f-fight?"

She nodded.

"G-good." Neo looked at the ground, brow furrowed, avoiding Whisper's eyes.

"Nneo... gud."

"..."


	4. Silence to Keep

**Strap in, folks—this is a long one!**

* * *

**4\. Silence to Keep**

* * *

Mudslide slept in her stall.

She was curled in a ball, her wings and tail wrapped around herself, tensing and relaxing as she dreamed. After flying lessons that afternoon she had simply collapsed onto the floor of her stall and welcomed the quiet, dark void she floated in.

When the door was eased open, she didn't so much as twitch. Not even when the hinge squealed. Something nudged her back leg. It was a gentle touch, but she jolted awake instantly. Her teeth snapped shut inches from Sky's throat.

"Sorry," he said, stroking her nose. "I noticed you didn't eat anything."

Mudslide blinked a few times, squinting in the light and realizing that the sun must be out. For a groggy moment she wasn't sure if it was morning or evening.

No. If it was morning, Sky would have brought more food like he always did. Since he'd started working in the barns, her stall had gotten much more comfortable. Sweet-smelling herbs covered the floor, her food bowls were always filled, and she never had to walk to the water barns for a drink.

If it was evening, she didn't have to be awake yet. Mudslide curled up again and hid her head under a wing. Sky sighed and tapped her shoulder. "Eat first. Then sleep."

Mudslide tried to roll over onto her other side and ignore him, but the muscles in her legs gave out. She let herself go limp. There were footsteps, moving towards the door—her heart ached, and she wanted to grab him and keep him in the stall but couldn't force herself to move.

Then the footsteps returned. Sky nudged her shoulder again. "Just a minute, okay? Then you can go back to sleep. I promise."

When she opened one eye, she saw that he had moved the steel food trough from its place next to the wall and placed it in front of her.

"Come here." He lifted her head onto his lap and fed her by hand. Mudslide realized how hungry she was halfway through. Once she got too eager and accidentally scored his hand with her teeth. He winced, but patted her head and assured her that it was fine.

By the time she was finished, she felt much better. Sky moved to stand up, but she got a foreleg around his waist and held him in place.

"I can't stay here all night," he said. "Mudslide..."

She moved her head from his lap to the ground, but kept her paw where it was and whined.

"You... want me to stay for a while? Until you fall asleep?"

Mudslide hummed contentedly.

"Okay." Sky grinned and shifted so that he was leaning up against her side. "You gonna tell me why you're acting like a cooked noodle today?"

She flicked her ears back, not sure how she was supposed to get the idea of flying class across. Then, eventually, she put a paw on his back and pressed down, gently but firmly.

"Uh... something squished you?"

Mudslide stared at him.

"Yeah, you're a bit big for that. Uh... I don't know girl, it just feels like something really heavy is leaning on—_oh! _The weights?"

A nod.

"They make you tired?"

Mudslide rumbled agreement and put her head back down on the ground. Her paw she left on Sky's shoulder, though she stopped pushing down. He frowned and scratched absentmindedly under her chin.

"Mudslide... how many weights did you carry today?"

Oh! She knew this one. She didn't feel like raising her whole paw, though, so she just tapped one claw on the ground, slowly, counting in her head.

Sky's eyes went wide. _"Eleven?"_ He got up and crossed to the door, then stopped when she warbled in protest. "It's okay girl, I'll be back in just a second."

From the other stall, she heard Sky murmur a question. The dragon across from her thumped his paw on the ground eight times.

When Sky came back, his eyes were narrowed and his fists were clenched. Mudslide backed up, curling her tail around herself, and his face softened. "I'm not mad at you. But you're not supposed to be carrying that much."

Mudslide put her head on her paws and warbled until Sky sat with her again. He was breathing slowly and deeply, and the hand that wasn't stroking her nose twitched in his lap. "I told Ozpin about the chain last week. He didn't do _shit." _He lurched to his feet. "He's not going to do anything this time, either. So _I _will."

She lunged, closing her jaws around a mouthful of his trousers. He tried to pull away, then stopped when she whined at him. Mudslide knew that when Sky said he wanted to 'do something,' it meant he wanted to hit Cardin. And she'd heard the other stable hands telling Sky that if he hit Cardin again, Ozpin would make him go away. She didn't want Sky to go away.

He didn't. The only time he got up was when Blake showed up to stay with Pit. Mudslide growled, annoyed that her time with Sky was being interrupted, but the faunus just walked past her. She retreated back into her stall and hummed contentedly when Sky followed her.

Her eyes drifted shut. Some time later, she heard a loud thump outside and they snapped open. It sounded like someone had walked around the back of the barn and knocked over a bale of hay. Sky tried to get up. She moved her head over so that it was across his legs, pinning him.

"I just gotta check what that was. I'll be right back."

She let out a grumpy growl, then reluctantly let him stand up. He moved all the way to the door and paused, listening. Something scraped against the outside of the wall. He muttered a curse under his breath and moved further into the barn. Mudslide wasn't sure why, but she followed. She was feeling much better now that she'd rested, and for some reason she didn't like the idea of Sky wandering away on his own.

They walked outside together and peered into the shadowy space between the barn she lived in and its neighbor. There was a small rustle, and one of the hay bales moved.

"Hey," Sky called out. "What are you doing?"

Silence.

Then a muttered, "Drat."

Sky put his hands on his hips. "What are you doing out here, Weiss? The water stable is that way."

"I know that!" She gave the hay bale she'd toppled one last shove. It knocked against the back of the barn, teetered for a moment, then slipped to the ground. "Ugh."

"Let me." Sky replaced the bale. "There's a trick to it. If you wanna lurk around here more often maybe I can show you."

"I wasn't _lurking."_

"Uh-huh."

"I want to talk to Blake, _happy?" _She crossed her arms. "Which stall is she in?"

"One near the end. It's got Pit's name on it."

"Right. Thank you."

She vanished into the stable. Sky shot Mudslide an incredulous look. She tilted her head to the side, confused, and he chuckled.

"C'mon. Let's go back inside."

* * *

Once she was in Pit's stall, Blake felt like she could finally breathe.

She loved her friends, she really did, but with every single one of her teammates constantly keeping track of her, and someone from CFVY guarding them, and JNPR and SSSN pitching in wherever they could... she'd felt watched. _Constantly._ That, combined with how hyperaware she'd become of her surroundings, with every suspicious shadow or sudden noise becoming _him..._

Now it was just her and Pit, and they were as safe as they could possibly be, surrounded by earth dragons. She was curled up against his flank, a book propped open on her knee and an empty thermos that had once contained some very soothing tea. Pit had taken to purring whenever she tensed up. Best of all, she was finally _alone._

Someone chose that exact moment to knock on the stall door—and Blake decided that person better have an _excellent _reason. If the school wasn't currently on fire or being invaded by Grimm, they were going to regret this.

Then she swung the door open and found Weiss. Just Weiss. Just Weiss _Schnee, _with none of their other friends _or _her dragon.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

Weiss looked taken aback. "I'm sorry if I disturbed you. I brought tea, if that helps?"

"Did you walk here _alone?!"_

"Oh. Yes, but—"

"Weiss!"

"Blake, it's broad daylight outside and we're in the middle of campus. The professors' dragons are patrolling all around us. Besides, I'm not the one under threat—" She stopped. Sighed. "Okay, scratch that last point, but the other two still stand."

"I thought you said we shouldn't be taking pointless risks—or does that not apply to you?"

"...You're right." Weiss shoved the mug of tea into her hands. "I'll go find the others."

The stable door shut with a heavy click. Blake stared at the steaming mug, then glanced at Pit. He shot her a disapproving look.

She groaned. "I know. I'll apologize when they come to collect me."

His stare turned from scolding to skeptical.

"Ugh."

Blake flopped to the ground next to him, slightly frustrated with herself for losing an argument in ten seconds flat to a dragon that hadn't uttered a single word. She drew her scroll out of her pocket—part of her knew she should probably talk to Weiss in person, but she also suspected she wouldn't be able to help getting snippy if her apology cut into the only time she could relax. Hopefully the scroll would make a decent compromise.

— I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you.

"See? I texted her."

Pit chuffed approvingly. Blake leaned her head back against his scales and sighed. She tried to read, but her eyes kept skimming over the same two lines. She'd just about decided to go back outside and give a _proper _apology—_why _had she thought the scroll would be an acceptable solution again?!—when the device buzzed.

— Why did you?

Blake frowned. That... wasn't an easy question to answer without coming across like she was making excuses.

— I turn into a bit of a goblin when I'm this stressed, but I shouldn't have taken it out on you.

Then, after a moment's thought, she added,

— Also, I was worried.

There was another silence, not quite so long this time. Again, the reply came just as Blake had decided she must have made some horrible mistake and Weiss had thrown away her scroll in disgust.

— That's sweet.

Blake stared at the screen for almost a full minute. Then she turned to Pit and showed him. He just stared at her, and an instant later she felt a very silly—she'd forgotten he couldn't read. Instead she read the whole conversation aloud. He tilted his head, like he still wasn't sure what the fuss was about.

"It's a strange thing to say!" she insisted. "How is yelling at someone for giving you tea sweet?" She typed out, 'Thank you, I think?' and deleted it. Groaned. Pit made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snicker. Eventually, she decided on a message and hit send.

— So was bringing me tea. Thank you!

The instant it was too late, she decided that had been an unfathomably stupid response. "Sometimes I think this mode of communication was invented to torture people."

— Your very welcome!

Again, Blake sat for a moment and just _stared. _Was that a typo?

Pit made a questioning noise. "She used the wrong you're," Blake explained. Very badly, as she realized when he cocked his head to the side like she'd just spoken another language.

She typed, 'Did Yang steal you're scroll—' and then furiously deleted it.

"Why did I think this would be less stressful than a normal conversation?" she wondered aloud. Pit had no answer.

Before she could decide on something better, her scroll buzzed again.

— Theres something I meant to tell you.

— Yes?

— Can you come outside for a moment? Its private.

It was only when Pit started purring again that Blake realized her heart was racing. Part of her was already speculating wildly on what Weiss might want to talk about and yielding absolutely nothing that made sense. Another part...

She stared at the last few texts. There were apostrophes missing. She'd never seen Weiss text that way before—maybe she was nervous? Why would she be _nervous?_

— Is something wrong?

— No, nothing like that. Ill explain in person.

Another missing apostrophe. Blake's ears folded back against her skull, and some intuition told her not to agree.

— We could talk in Pit's stall?

The next reply was a long time coming. Pit crooned anxiously, and Blake scratched him under the chin to soothe him. Finally, her scroll buzzed. She opened it and read,

— Come outside. Alone. Now. Tell no one. Especially not the hybrid.

The bottom dropped out of her stomach. Blake's hand clenched around the scroll, hard. She shoved it into her pocket and got to her feet. Pit's head rose with her.

"I'll just be a moment," she said, surprising herself with how steady her voice was. "Weiss wants to talk to me."

Pit moved to follow her.

"No," she snapped. He reared back, hurt. "Sorry. Just... this is private. Okay? I'll be right back." She felt his eyes burning into her back even after she closed his stall door behind her.

As she walked into the barn, she felt like the whole thing had been tilted. She couldn't keep her balance. Her thoughts whirled—it had to be him, there was no one else it _could _be. But she couldn't just not walk into the trap, he'd—

The threats were already there. How many of them had she heard, before she'd even met Weiss? How many people had she heard plan out, in gristly detail, what they'd do if they had the chance?

Her shoulder struck something solid, and she reeled. Sky stood in front of her, giving her a look that might almost be concerned. "What's with you?"

A flash of inspiration struck her. "I'm going to grab another book," she said. "I should be back in fifteen minutes. If not, can you get call Yang and tell her she doesn't need to meet me here?" Yang would know she wasn't supposed to be wandering around alone. She'd figure out something was wrong... tell someone... _something._

He shrugged. "Got her number?"

Sweat beaded somewhere on her back, sliding down her spine. She typed it out from memory, feeling her heartbeat in her throat. Her scroll buzzed, and she fumbled for it in a panic.

— 5

"Got it." Sky peered at her face and frowned. "You sure you're not sick or something?"

"Yes." Another buzz.

— 4

"I have to go." She half-ran towards the end of the barn, _praying _that Sky wouldn't choose this _exact worst moment _to start giving a damn how she was feeling. He didn't follow her.

Her scroll buzzed. Then again. _Three... two..._

Blake stumbled out into the late-afternoon sunlight. "I'm here!"

A buzz.

— Shh.

A pair of older students passed by. Blake stuffed her hands into her pockets so they wouldn't see them shaking. Once they'd gone, her scroll went off again.

— Your new friend and I are out back. Come say hello.

* * *

_Broad daylight, I said._

The late-afternoon sun glinted on the barrel of a gun. Weiss noted distantly that it was uglier and boxier than she'd expected—the only firearm she'd seen in person up until now had belonged to Father, and was made for display.

_The middle of campus._

He stepped up behind her, resting the muzzle of the gun lightly between her shoulderblades. She couldn't see what they looked like, but a fourth-year Weiss knew only by face passed by without a second glance. Apparently the weapon was well-hidden behind her.

And, of course, she'd never _not _been a target. Thinking otherwise had been idiotic.

"What are you doing here, Schnee?" His voice was low, almost a whisper. "You don't have an earth dragon. That's not _good _enough for you, is it?"

"I'm here for a friend. He asked me to check on his dragon."

"What friend?"

Well. If he was going to do something unpleasant... "Cardin Winchester."

The man behind her hummed thoughtfully. "Interesting. Why don't we go for a little walk, now?" He poked her with the gun, like he thought she'd somehow managed to forget about it. They walked around to the space between two barns, and Weiss cast a single longing glance towards the bale of hay she'd knocked over only a few minutes ago. She doubted she could replicate the feat without getting shot, and even if she did there was no telling whether Sky would bother to investigate.

Finally, they stopped. He walked all the way around her so that they were face to face, and she noticed that he was smirking. A wide-brimmed hat was pulled low over his face. Somehow she'd expected him to be wearing a Grimm mask, even though she knew other students who had seen him hadn't noticed anything wrong. He wasn't, but his face wasn't completely bare, either. There was a tattered red bandana tied around his eyes, mostly hidden under the hat.

He gestured at her with the gun. "Tip anyone off and I shoot you. Understand?"

Slowly, she nodded.

"Good." He took a quick stepped forward and pressed the gun against her temple. "Now, I think you owe me an apology."

It took a moment to respond—the gun was _very _distracting. "For what, exactly?"

He laughed. "Where should I _start? _You lied to me, just now."

_What? But how—_

"You're not here for Cardin Winchester. You're here for your teammate."

Weiss tensed. She didn't dare answer that—she wasn't about to admit she'd been here to see Blake when he might not know, but she doubted he'd react well if he caught her in another lie. Instead she waited, hoping he'd keep talking. Yang and Ruby were supposed to pick Blake up in... what, twenty minutes? Thirty? Could she really keep him occupied that long?

Her scroll buzzed. She tried not to react, but he must have heard the noise.

"Scroll," he snapped, holding out his other hand. "Slowly. Don't press any buttons."

She drew it out and opened it. Blake's icon was displayed at the top of the screen. _Oh, wonderful._

He read the message, his grip on the device tightening. "Like father like daughter," he said, deadly quiet. "Always so eager to make themselves someone's pet."

"She's a friend."

The hand holding the scroll twitched violently. "Well then, you shouldn't keep her waiting." He thrust the scroll back into her hand and moved the gun so that it tickled the top of her right ear. "Type what I tell you. Don't do anything else."

At that, a very different kind of panic welled up in her. Being used as a tool to hurt someone she cared about? She wasn't about to let that stand.

It was with great satisfaction that, a few minutes later, she read Blake's response to her offer to come outside. She _had_ to know something was wrong. _Call Yang and Ruby,_ Weiss thought furiously, _or Ozpin!_

Adam read over her shoulder. After that he was quiet for an agonizingly long time. His free hand gripped her shoulder, and she tensed. It took another nudge from the gun to resist the urge to slap it away. Her father used to do that, too—invading personal space as a petty power play.

With the next message, he dropped all pretense. Then they waited.

Her hand shook as she typed. She hit two instead of three by accident, had to delete it.

Blake had figured it out. With any luck she'd called for help. Now Weiss just had to survive the next minute or so. If she grabbed for the gun... no, he was expecting that, but if she ducked and kneed him in the—

"I'm here!"

About thirty seconds and another two messages later, Blake was standing in the shadow of the earth barn. Weiss glared at her. _Of course she showed up. The idiot._ "Blake, get out of—" The hand on her shoulder tightened. A warning.

Slowly, Blake put both hands up, fingers spread. "Why are you here, Adam? Is it Pit?"

"What, the hatchling you _stole? _Partly." He moved the gun in a little circle, just at the periphery of Weiss' vision. She didn't dare turn her head. "I've heard some interesting things about your teammates. Is this your way of spiting me? Spitting on everything we bled for?"

"Ozpin put all the students with their own eggs together." Blake made a face, as if she were looking back on a particularly unpleasant memory. "I needed somewhere to hide."

Adam chuckled darkly, glancing at Weiss. The moment his head was turned, Blake flicked one ear. It was just enough for Weiss to realize that she'd put on her bow. She knew that meant something, it was the beginning of a plan, but her mind was working too slowly. Why...?

"I don't know what I ever saw in you," he said. "Cozying up to one of _them?"_

Blake looked down, as if ashamed. "What do you want?"

He hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I was _going _to offer you the chance to come back... but it's obvious you aren't worthy of our organization anymore."

"I'm not letting you near Pit."

"I don't give a damn about the hybrid, either!" He was breathing hard, now. Slowly, deliberately, he turned the gun away from Weiss and towards Blake. She was standing only a few yards away—technically the odds of him missing were _better, _but not by enough. Would it be possible to knock his arm aside? She'd have a better shot at disrupting his aim, but... she couldn't bring herself to risk it. Not yet, anyway.

"Let's just talk," Blake offered. "You and me. We can—"

She froze. Adam stepped behind Weiss, jamming the gun into her back again. A group of four passed the earth barn, then disappeared further into the grounds. He shifted so that he was aiming at Blake again.

"I don't care what she hears." That... was _not _encouraging.

"Please... I don't want it going around. The staff don't know."

Oh. _Oh. _Weiss put on an air of indignation. "It's bad enough you kept _that_ a secret," she snapped, glancing over at Adam. "If you think I'm willing to work with someone who's lying to my face—"

"Don't worry. She won't be telling anyone." Blake tensed. Not by much, but he noticed. "Don't tell me you're going to act squeamish about a _Schnee."_

"You're talking about murdering someone." Blake put her hands in her pockets. Weiss suspected she was trying to hide the fact that they were shaking.

"Is that it?"

Without warning, he grabbed Weiss' ear with his free hand and twisted. She yelped, tried to move away, then froze when the gun pointed at her. He let go. Blake had frozen with one hand outstretched. Slowly, she clenched it into a fist and let it drop to her side.

"So _this _is the sort of person you'd rather befriend," he said, voice shaking with anger. "The people who treat us like slaves..." He tapped the gun against her cheek. "Take off the bow."

Blake ripped it away, letting it flutter to the ground. "Adam—"

"Look at her face. See the _disgust—"_

"Well," Weiss said. "I suppose it was worth a try. Good thinking, Blake."

Blake twitched, like she was fighting the urge to step forward. "Weiss, _please_ just let me do the talking."

"You knew." His voice was flat.

Weiss turned her head so that she could stare him directly in the eyes. "Yes."

She knew she should stop antagonizing him, but... she glanced to her left, saw the sneer on his face. Her whole body felt like it was boiling.

He looked like he was probably feeling the same way. "You really are pathetic," he spat. His free hand moved away from Weiss' shoulder, and he tossed the hat he'd been wearing to the ground. "Kneeling for the ones who chained your brothers and sisters..." He reached for the bandana around his face and undid the knot. "The ones who _branded _us like _cattle."_

Weiss couldn't stop the noise she made—a little huff, as if someone had kneed her in the stomach. There was a mark over his eye, an angry red burn. At first, she read 502. The truth dawned slowly. Realization turned to horror, and that in turn became a wave of nausea that almost made her double over.

"Oh my god..."

"I've been waiting a long time to repay the favor. I wonder what I should use as my mark? Do I put it over the scar, or make you nice and symmetrical?"

"Adam, stop it!" Blake took two steps forward, then froze when he pressed the gun to Weiss' temple. "She had nothing to do with that!"

"Keep it down. Unless you want to make those poor stable hands clean brain matter off the walls."

She lowered her voice. _"Please! _I'll go with you if you want, just—"

"Blake, don't you dare!" Weiss flinched as he grabbed her ear again, but she _refused _to stay quiet. "If this _thug _wants to—"

Adam moved. Weiss wasn't sure what he was about to do—he'd drawn his arm back, but she couldn't tell if he wanted to hit her or go for her throat. The gun drifted out of line, pointing somewhere between the two of them. Blake sprinted towards them, one hand outstretched...

The gun went off, and something slammed into the side of Weiss' head. She stumbled, rammed into a bale of hay, rolled onto her back so she was staring up at the cloudless blue sky. She drew in a breath, and with all the force of years of singing lessons she shrieked, _"Pit!"_

There was an earth-shattering _roar _from inside the stables. More echoed it soon after, and the ground shook under the force of dozens of enormous, spade-like feet. Weiss struggled, trying to get her arms under her. They wouldn't cooperate. Her head was ringing, and everything was so _blurry._

Another gunshot. Then another and another, fast and frantic. She forced herself to stand on shaky legs, then looked up and saw an earth dragon charging at full speed. Weiss recognized Mudslide just in time for her shoulder to slam into her. This time she landed flat on her back, gasping for a breath that wouldn't come.

A shadow passed over her. She panicked for a second, until she saw four thick legs bracketing her where she lay, protecting her from the press of earth dragons. Four legs that were rather smaller than all the others. _Twiggy..._

The gunfire stopped. Adam swore, then cried out once. There was a low, murderous _shriek _that Weiss felt right down to her bones. Pit howled again and finally went silent.

Weiss crawled out from under Twiggy and stood with her help. She couldn't even see Adam through the press, but Pit had his head held high, twisting frantically from side to side. Looking for Blake. She stumbled towards him, glancing around and seeing nothing but scales. Had Blake gotten caught underfoot?!

Pit thrashed and howled. Finally, there was an answering chirp. Weiss clambered up onto the back of a dragon she didn't recognize and finally spotted Zircon. He was curled into a ball, shivering uncontrollably. Then, slowly, he lifted his wing just enough to reveal dark hair underneath.

Weiss sprinted towards them, just managing to grab hold of Pit as he pushed past her. She hit the dirt next to Zircon, breathing hard.

"Safe," he said, lifting his wing a little further. Blake was curled on her side, her head pillowed on Zircon's forelegs. There was blood on his scales.

* * *

"Help!"

Sky clung to Mudslide's back, wincing as every other step jarred him. A group of students skidded to a stop, staring at him.

"Get Ozpin!" he shouted. "Behind the earth stables—I think somebody's been shot!"

Two of them took off towards the school, while the other two went back the way he'd come. Mudslide kept running, and he felt a pang as he realized how exhausted she must be.

"Shit..." He stroked her scales as she let out a pained warble. "Hey! Where the fuck is everyone?!"

Sky glanced at the sun, which was just starting to set. Right—they were probably at dinner. Fuck.

"You know where the cafeteria is?"

Mudslide rumbled an affirmative. Sky slumped against her neck, his heart still beating a mile a minute. He didn't understand how this could have happened—who the hell even was that guy?! How'd he get this close to Beacon? The teachers had been going nuts on security lately, even some of the fourth-year dragons had joined in on patrolling. And how had he known Blake and Weiss would be by the—by the barn. By _Pit's stall._

"Oh, _fuck."_

He'd handed the map to the tiger faunus. And she must have—did he still _have it?!_

"Shit, shit, _shit!"_

Mudslide whimpered anxiously.

"I gotta go. I gotta... shit. Can you run ahead? Just... just try to lead people to that spot behind the barn. I need... I need to do something."

He slid off while she was still running, wincing when he hit the ground. Mudslide hesitated a moment, then reluctantly left him behind. Sky turned and sprinted the other way.

"Fuck, _shit!" _They'd asked about Blake, but he hadn't thought it would turn out like _this!_ How was he supposed to know that—they were supposed to be interested in her _dragon, _they weren't supposed to try to kill her!

Up ahead, Pit roared. It was a horrible, anguished noise, and Sky skidded to a stop. _Please don't be dead, please don't be dead..._ "Fuck," he mumbled, "Fuck, what did I—shit..." The man might still have the map. Ozpin would find it, they'd find out it was him, they'd... _gods, _the rest of her team would murder him, _Pit _would murder him, and he wouldn't even blame them.

Sky forced himself to keep going. He had to see that she was okay, because she _had _to be okay, and he had to get the map.

Most of the earth dragons had fanned out. He tried to rush past several of them. They stopped him, eyeing him suspiciously until one of them sniffed him, huffed at the others, and let him pass. The two older students that had run this way were standing several yards away from Zircon, who was still curled up in a ball. Pit was standing over him, and even as Sky approached he lifted his head and howled again. Weiss was kneeling, leaning forward so that her head was under Zircon's wing.

There was only one other figure nearby. The man, lying on his face. Sky swallowed bile and approached the body, prodding it once with his foot.

Yep. Definitely dead.

"What the _hell _are you doing here?"

He jumped halfway out of his skin. Weiss still wasn't looking at him, but it was immediately obvious that it was him she was talking to.

"I s-sent Mudslide ahead," he stammered. "I just... I wanted to see if... is she...?"

"She's breathing. Now will one of you idiots stop _standing there _and go _find someone? _Or did you forget that Mudslide _can't talk yet?!" _One of the older students swore and took off towards the school. His friend followed.

Sky forced himself to take deep, calming breaths. Weiss wasn't looking at him. She didn't bother asking him why he was still there, and seemed content to ignore him entirely. He swallowed hard, crouching down next to the dead man.

_Okay,_ he thought. _Okay, he has pockets, just reach in..._

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away, felt around. The guy's skin was still warm. Nothing... nothing... _paper!_

Sky snatched the scrap of paper from the man's pocket, his heart hammering. Another glance at Weiss showed that she was still... occupied. He opened the paper, found scribbled instructions that matched the ones he'd given the strangers exactly. The next thing he knew he was sitting down, breathing shallowly and fighting the urge to throw up.

The proof was in his hands—this was all his fault.

* * *

Blood smelled like metal.

Blood was something that happened when Fang and Huo were hatchlings, mauling their riders at every opportunity. Little drops spilled during play scuffles. Cuts and scrapes.

It was the smell of Tornado as he died.

Pit rose up onto his haunches and roared. The noise came from somewhere in his chest, a hard knot that kept on tightening until he was sure something would snap. Zircon whimpered, curling himself tighter.

Weiss nudged his wing out of the way, put her hands on his rider. Blake's face twisted. She made a small noise, pained. The human hurt his rider. Pit bellowed again, baring his teeth until the human backed away.

"Pit, please... I need to put pressure on the wound."

Words. He roared again, putting his face close to hers, watching her shiver. The other one was dead now, he couldn't hurt Blake anymore. Was this one going to try, too? He wanted Zircon to go away, it should be him curled up around her. He was supposed to keep her safe.

"Pit!" The human touched him. He snapped his jaws in front of her face, growled. "I'm trying to help. You know me. I'd _never _hurt her."

Her hand came down just behind his ears, scratching the scales there. He kept his teeth bared, his head between her and his rider. She was Specter's human. She wouldn't hurt Blake... but she'd touched Blake and Blake had been hurt.

"Please... she's losing blood..."

Pit didn't know what to do. He pulled his head back. The human knew what to do... Weiss knew what to do. Or she knew _something _that she could do. He remembered Fang, how he'd hissed and snapped the first time their professors had cleaned his cuts. Maybe this was like that. It would hurt and then Blake would be better.

Weiss knelt down, leaning against Zircon's side so that she could reach. Pit whined and put his head under Zircon's wing. It was warm and dark—safe.

He licked Blake's face. She still wasn't moving. He nuzzled her with his nose—somewhere under the stench of blood there was still a hint of her scent. When she didn't respond he purred and licked her face again. Nothing. Slowly, as he whimpered and nudged her and tried to squeak like he had as a hatchling, he realized just how small she really was. Their riders were all so small...

Beside him, Weiss started to hum softly. It was the same song that had calmed Storm when Ruby was away. He understood for the first time why she had cried so much that first night. It was like Blake had gone away somewhere, without him, and he didn't know when she'd be back. If she'd be back.

Pit lay his ears back against his skull and burrowed deeper under Zircon's wing.

"Lake," he murmured. "Safe..."

* * *

**Wow, I'm just now realizing how perfect Brand's name actually is. Solora Goldsun is psychic confirmed?**


	5. Helicopter Dragon

**Hi again! Hope everyone's had a good weekend, and uh... have some more dragons I guess? *Flaps arms* I dunno.**

**Also, I've still got lotsa buffer, so expect me back on Friday again!**

* * *

**5\. Helicopter Dragon**

* * *

"Pit... Pit, no."

It had been a very long night.

"Don't look at me like that!"

Pit had _not _taken any of this well. He'd pined until well after midnight, even with Weiss singing and Ruby sitting next to him and scratching under his chin. Yang had just sat nearby, stroking his side and feeling useless. Only when Ozpin finally sent them an update, telling them that Blake was okay and they could visit the next morning, did he finally drop off to sleep.

"You and I _both _know you're not going to fit." Pit huffed and gently headbutted Weiss. _Gently, _in this case, meaning she didn't quite fall over. Specter hissed and narrowed his eyes. Weiss just crossed her arms and stared him down.

Once Pit was out, it was her turn. Ruby was easy—Yang had coaxed her back into bed after a nightmare so many times by now she could do it in her sleep. For Weiss... she'd tried everything she could possibly think of and eventually settled on plying her with soothing tea and threatening to turn off her alarm until she shut up and got under the blankets. Not that Yang could blame her, but she'd been through a lot yesterday and she needed _rest, _damn it!

She'd been completely useless getting them out of danger, so it was the least she could do to help them deal with the fallout—and hopefully keep Pit from demolishing a wall of the infirmary. Yang was sure he knew he was too big to fit through the doorway, but she was also sure he didn't care. "Pit—" she started, but she was interrupted by a window opening several yards away.

"Don't worry dears," a nurse said, leaning out and beckoning with one hand. "We're used to them hovering. Just have him stick his head through here."

Yang stared, bemused, as Pit bounded up to the wall and poked his head inside. Judging by his excited roar, that was where Blake's bed was. The humans of the team had to go through through the door, leaving their dragons pacing around in the courtyard outside.

Beacon's infirmary was small, but comfortable. Enough riders hurt themselves doing stupid stunts—or dealing with young fire dragons—that they were just as well-equipped as most hospitals. If they hadn't been, Blake probably would have died.

But they had. They had, and now she was cocooned in starchy infirmary sheets, fast asleep. Pit had already plonked his huge square head down next to her and was purring contentedly. Yang smiled, nudged Weiss—she'd frozen in place at the sight—and eventually left to collect a few uncomfortable plastic chairs. As the only patient currently suffering from anything worse than a broken wrist, Blake had her own private room. One of the nurses had removed her bow and folded it neatly on a small fold-out table next to her head.

All in all, she looked... clean. Yang wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Most of her experience with injuries came from Uncle Qrow, who tended to go to their dad rather than the hospital unless it was something really life-threatening. He was always a total mess until he healed up. Beacon's nurses were probably changing Blake's bandages more often than Qrow could be bothered with his. Hopefully.

Yang sat between Ruby and Weiss, slinging an arm across each of their shoulders. Weiss edged away, then eventually settled back against the chair without comment. Pit ignored all three of them. He just lay there, occasionally opening one eye halfway as if to check that Blake was still there, or licking the side of her face.

At some point, Weiss' scroll went off. Yang turned just in time to see her lip curl in distaste before she pulled it out, glared at it, and jabbed a button like it had done her a personal wrong. Then she stuffed it back into her pocket.

After that, silence. Weiss still hadn't told them everything that had happened—they knew Adam showed up, and that he'd died. That was it. Yang hadn't really wanted to ask and risk keeping her up last night.

JNPR came to visit at around eleven, then SSSN a couple hours later. Nurses came and went. Pit licked Blake's face again, and one of her fingers twitched.

"I'm going to grab some food," Yang decided. She'd only managed to force Weiss to eat a bit of fruit that morning. "Ruby, come with?"

"Yeah, sure!" She stopped long enough to squeeze Blake's hand and give Pit a pat on the nose, then followed Yang out the door.

* * *

The first thing Blake was conscious of was a massive weight pressing down on her right side. Her left arm was trapped, too. There was a dull throbbing in one leg, building in intensity with every heartbeat.

Panic woke her the rest of the way up. He was still here, he was holding her _down—_

Her eyes shot open and were seared by fluorescent lighting. She squeezed them shut and tried to sit up, but the terrible weight wouldn't let her. It was warm, too warm. Fire writhed behind her eyelids, metal glowing cherry red.

"It's okay." The restraint on her left arm squeezed once. "You're in the infirmary."

Blake cracked one eye partway open and realized that she couldn't move her left arm because her hand was caught in Weiss'. And the terrible weight, on further inspection...

Pit's nose twitched as he slept, his head pillowed on Blake's right side. She tried to wiggle her fingers and winced at the pins and needles.

"Pit?" Weiss released her other hand so that she could nudge him. "Can I have my arm back n—"

One yellow eye flew open wide. "Lake!" The next thing she knew, the weight on her arm had migrated to her chest and Pit was licking her face so enthusiastically she started to worry about asphyxiating.

"Easy," Weiss said, gently pushing his head to the side. "Let her breathe."

It took several minutes before Pit finally settled. He retreated just enough so that his head was on the pillow next to Blake's, then purred in her ear. She struggled for a moment, then finally managed to sit up with little push from Weiss.

She peeled back the sheets, searching for the source of the pain in her leg. She was wearing a hospital gown—thin, starchy, and swamp-green—and just underneath the hem she could see a swathe of bandages wrapped around her right thigh.

"You were shot." Weiss' voice only wobbled a little, and she coughed to try and hide it.

"...Oh."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

—_dark, everything had gone dark and there was something wrapping around her, restraining her, limbs going weak, pain... then light through a gap. Pit's face, blurring out—_

"I think I was on the ground." It took that long to realize what she should have asked, what she _needed _to ask. "Adam! Where—?"

"He's dead." Weiss sat back down—there were two chairs to the right of hers, both empty. "The earth dragons heard the gunshot and ran out. Zircon protected you while you were out, and Mudslide got Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch."

"So they... Adam, the dragons..."

Weiss nodded. Pit whined and pressed his nose against the back of Blake's head. She scratched under his chin. "I know," she murmured. "I'm not upset with you. If you hadn't—you saved our lives. Thank you."

"They're looking into how he got that far onto the grounds," Weiss added, "but if they've found anything they haven't told us yet."

"Right."

They lapsed into an awkward silence. Blake tried not to be too obvious about checking Weiss' face—she would have noticed right away if he'd done something, but there was a part of her that just wouldn't relax until she'd looked.

Eventually the quiet got unbearable and Blake pointed to the empty chairs. "Where—"

"Ruby and Yang went to get food. They should be back soon, although..."

"Yes?"

"...Never mind."

More silence. Blake wondered whether or not she was on painkillers. Her leg hurt quite a lot, but she wasn't sure she was thinking clearly. Every time she blinked it was a little harder to open her eyes again, but it seemed like bad form to pass out again before reassuring Yang and Ruby that she was indeed alive.

That, and... "I'm sorry."

Weiss had been standing at the head of the bed, scratching Pit behind his ears while Blake got the spot under his chin. He opened one eye grumpily when she stopped to stare at Blake. "What?"

"About... getting you mixed up in all of that."

It took a minute for Weiss to respond—a minute she spent lavishing attention on Pit, much to his delight. Then, finally, "If we're going to play the blame game, you would have been safe if I hadn't wandered around alone like that."

"That's not the point—"

"No. It isn't." Weiss moved from one ear to the other, prompting Pit to start purring again. "My point is that it wasn't your fault. Besides, I don't have a scratch on me. You don't need to feel guilty."

Blake raised an eyebrow and stared pointedly at her elbow, which had been scraped raw at some point during the scuffle. Weiss rolled her eyes. "It's a figure of speech and you know it."

"Still."

"Fine. If you're _so_ eager to talk about what went wrong—" Blake suddenly found herself on the receiving end of an unusually intense glare. "What exactly were you thinking? I know you figured out those messages weren't from me."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, _I don't know. _Maybe the fact that you just up and wandered into the clutches of a crazed madman?!"

Pit shot Weiss a reproachful look.

"...You didn't need to do that."

"What else was I going to do, keep reading like nothing was wrong?"

"Call Ozpin? Or Goodwitch, or Yang and Ruby, or anyone from Juniper or Sun, or—"

"I couldn't."

"Why—"

"You read the message." Blake pulled Pit into her lap, wincing until he settled his weight on her good leg. "It was you that left out all the apostrophes, right?"

"Well, yes." Weiss folded her arms. "But there was no way for him to know if you'd sent out a message first."

"I did, sort of. I told Sky to contact Yang if I wasn't back for a while, but I just... I wasn't sure if he was monitoring me somehow. It might not even have been just him on campus. If someone else was watching me..."

"So instead you jump headfirst into a trap?"

"Yes!" Pit let out a concerned hum and stuck his head between the two of them. Blake sighed. "Sorry, Pit. But... yes. I didn't really know what else to do. I thought maybe if I convinced him I didn't really know you..."

"He'd let the Schnee go?"

"I _do _know it wasn't a good plan," Blake said wryly. "I just couldn't think of anything better in the heat of the moment."

Weiss heaved a sigh. "I don't mean to sound like I'm _accusing _you. It's just..."

"Just?"

"Nothing."

Pit huffed and gently headbutted Weiss' shoulder. She glared at him, then at the ceiling. "I was... concerned."

Another bump.

"..._Fine. _It scared me! Happy?"

He hummed again and tilted his head so that Blake had easier access to the scales under his chin, clearly very pleased with himself. Weiss grumbled something uncomplimentary about meddling lizards.

Blake swallowed hard. "It scared me too." Judging by the look Pit gave her, he knew as well as she did that was the understatement of the century. "I don't think you understand... I was around him for a long time. I've heard things from him. Especially in the last few months, he'd talk about..." She couldn't get the words out. "Maybe there was a better way to go about it, but I just... I panicked."

"...You're right. I wasn't exactly calm and collected at the moment either, so... you're right. That makes sense."

She tried for a grin. "Well, we both made it out without any permanent injury. That's... honestly better than I would have expected."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence."

Blake turned her attention to Pit. "And I'm sorry," she said again, "for snapping at you. I thought if he saw you, or heard you..."

"Safe," he said. "Gud." Blake smiled and brought her other hand up to scratch behind his ear. Somewhere outside, she heard his back paw thumping against the ground. She did a double-take. Obviously she'd _noticed _that Pit had stuck his head through the window, but it hadn't occurred to her until just now to wonder whether or not he was supposed to be waiting outside.

"Is this...?"

"Apparently it's infirmary policy." There was a hint of amusement in Weiss' voice now. "Otherwise I'm sure Pit would've broken through the wall."

She smiled at that, glancing fondly at her dragon. They stayed like that a moment, all three of them silently enjoying the quiet of the... morning? Afternoon? Blake had no idea.

"Hey!"

Startled, Blake turned a little more quickly than she should have and winced when she instinctively tried to move her bad leg. Yang was standing in the doorway to her room, a tray balanced on one hand and a bottle of water in the other, holding the door open with her hip. Behind her, Ruby carried even _more _food, and she thought she could see a familiar hoodie behind _her__._

"You're awake!" Yang shouldered her way into the room, wincing when a tower of sandwiches toppled over. They would have fallen if Ruby hadn't shoved her tray into the person standing behind her—who did indeed turn out to be Jaune—and reached under her sister's arm to steady them.

"We found some friends." Ruby pointed at Jaune, and the rest of his team as they poked their heads into the doorway.

"I... don't think we'll all fit," Pyrrha said hesitantly.

"It's _fine." _Yang waved the hand holding the water bottle, then strode over to drop the tray in Blake's lap.

To Blake's horror, she soon spotted _Sage _behind Nora and heard Sun laugh. "We are _not _cramming twelve people in here."

"Agreed." Weiss waved Ruby in, then poked Jaune until he backed up into the hallway. "Two at a time, please."

None of them protested, either because Pit and Weiss were both glaring in their general direction or because none of them were interested in packing themselves in like sardines.

The visits went quickly—Blake's eyelids were starting to feel heavy, and she could tell her team had noticed. Sun gave her a card signed by everyone, with a dragon printed on the front that bore a striking resemblance to Pit. It had a thermometer in its mouth, and below it was a caption that read, "We hope you can dragon yourself out of bed soon!" Ren offered her a box of herbal tea he said encouraged healing. By the end of it she was left feeling warm, content, and _very _sleepy.

"Ah."

Dragonmaster Ozpin peered inside, smiling at Sage and Scarlet. Both said a hasty goodbye and retreated. Weiss didn't budge, and hadn't all... morning? Afternoon? She still didn't know, and now seemed like a bad time to ask.

Whatever time it was, she must have looked about as tired as she felt, because the first thing Ozpin said was, "I know you need your rest, and I won't take up too much of your time. I simply wanted to inform you that Adam Taurus is dead."

"Weiss told me."

"Good. Now, this is something that I would normally report to the council, in the interest of acquiring extra security." Blake tensed. "However, considering your circumstances—" he glanced at Pit, "—I've done my best to keep your involvement in the matter quiet. As far as they are concerned, a White Fang operated attempted to steal Dust from our campus and had an altercation with a student in the process."

"So..." She wished her head was clearer. "The council..."

"Won't hear anything about you or your dragon. I've told them the student in question wished to remain anonymous."

Blake slumped back against her pillows. A wave of relief swept over her, and it was all she could do to stay conscious. Adam was gone. The council didn't know. They were safe. And if she felt a little pang at the thought of him dead, that was at least something she had the luxury of processing later.

"Is that all?" Weiss asked, and Ozpin nodded. He said something else, but Blake hardly even heard it. She was aware of the door opening and closing. Then silence... a cool hand on her forehead... a familiar scaly weight dipping the pillow next to her head... and nothing at all.

* * *

A twig snapped.

Zircon whirled around, his tail twitching and his ears straining.

"Shh..." Sage patted his shoulder. "You're safe. It's just me."

He whined and curled around his rider. Every few seconds he had to lift up one wing and peek—he kept remembering when it was Blake there, bleeding. When had their giant, invincible riders gotten so small?

This wasn't right. Their riders weren't supposed to bleed—except maybe Sun and Yang. Danger wasn't supposed to be able to creep right up to the earth barns. Pit wasn't supposed to howl like that. Shaking now, he burrowed his head into his rider's shirt.

Sage leaned back against his side, petting his scales. "I'm so proud of you," he murmured.

Zircon lifted his head to stare at his rider. A hand came to scratch under his chin, and his eyes dipped halfway closed.

"You protected Blake. I know you must have been terrified... but you put yourself at risk to help others." He patted Zircon's nose. "It was brave."

Zircon shoved his head back under Sage's arm, this time out of embarrassment rather than terror. He... he_ had _done that, hadn't he?

He remembered the noise. Sage had explained that it was a gunshot, but at the time it had sounded like an explosion, or the cry of some horrible monster. He remembered Pit's anguished shriek, mixed with the cries of the one who'd attacked them. Weak, ragged breathing... the smell of iron... the man on the ground, not moving. Was that what bravery was supposed to feel like?

Zircon thought it felt like wanting to be sick.

"N-no," he mumbled.

"No?" Sage stroked his nose. "What, you think you can't be brave if you're afraid?"

"F-feel... buh. Bad."

"You feel... guilty?"

Zircon shook his head.

"Rr... Rayy... Vuh. Feel B-bad."

Sage thought that over for a moment. "It... felt bad to be brave?" he guessed.

A nod.

"I don't think that's true." Sage drew Zircon's head into his chest and hugged him around the neck. "It feels bad to be in situations where you have to be brave. Yesterday... it must have been terrifying. I'm sorry that happened. But... try to think of being brave as... the best thing that can happen in a bad moment. You were scared. It felt bad to have to make that choice, but you did a good thing. A _great _thing.

"You kept Blake safe. I hope you can be proud of that... because I definitely am."

Zircon burrowed further into his rider. He still felt jittery from the day before, still sick with knowing how easy it would be for someone to come and hurt his other friends. But at the same time... he felt warm. Like somebody had just lit a candle in his chest.

_Brave. _He still thought that didn't feel so good. But _safe... protected... _that was good. It was something he hoped he could do again.

* * *

"What. The. Fuck."

It was all Sky could do to force the words out through gritted teeth. He was alone in the dark in the Emerald forest. There were two of them and one of him, and Hazel had enough muscle to make three of him. He remembered being in this same situation weeks ago, the fear making him tremble. Now he was shaking with suppressed rage, and fear was the _last _thing on his mind.

Hazel folded his arms. "What happened? We heard the dragon—"

"Everyone heard the fucking dragon!" Sky jabbed a finger in the direction of the school. "That dragon? The _only _one who—" his voice cracked. "The only one with the _spine _to try and help Tornado? Everyone heard him _screaming!"_

"That's why I asked," the faunus girl snapped. "You're our informant, if something happens—"

"Don't fucking lie to me!" He started pacing, bleeding off the excess energy before he did something stupid like try to hit one of them. "You told me you wanted to know about Pit! You didn't say you wanted to _murder his_ _rider!"_

The girl's eyes went wide. Then she swore viciously and put a hand to her forehead, like she was reeling with the news.

"Was it him?" Hazel asked her.

"Yes." Her lip curled. _"Idiot._"

Hazel turned to Sky. "The leader of the White Fang has a... personal grudge. We didn't know he was going to do that. If we had, we would have stopped him."

"Had."

The big man raised an eyebrow.

"Had," Sky repeated. "Past tense. He's dead."

The faunus girl cursed again. "What happened? Was anyone else injured?"

"Yeah. He fucking _shot her!"_

Hazel looked pained. "Dead?"

"No." If she had been, Sky would have attacked them both and damn the consequences. "But I'm done. Out." He took a step back towards Beacon.

"Wait."

"What?!" He whirled around and glared at Hazel.

"You're angry. So am I." He set his jaw. "The girl did nothing wrong. I don't like unnecessary violence."

"He's an idiot," the faunus girl added. "Was an idiot. He set us all back getting himself killed like that, all because of his own obsession."

Hazel shot her a look that silently begged her to stop helping. Then he turned back to Sky and hooked his thumbs through his belt. "I'd like to apologize... and I think you'll want to stick around."

"Why?" he demanded, suspicious.

"We have someone you'll want to meet."

"He does," the girl clarified. "I have news to deliver." She scowled. "And a mess to clean up." With that, she disappeared into the trees. Sky stared after her. He was torn now between curiosity and anger, but the longer he looked at Hazel's sorrowful expression the more convinced he was that he really hadn't known.

"It won't be tonight," Hazel said. "Too much of a hike to get to her."

"Who?"

At that, Hazel smiled. "Raven Branwen. She can get you an egg... and a place to stay, far outside the council's reach."

Sky swallowed hard. "When...?"

"You tell me. It'll take all day, so you'd better plan around that."

"Saturday," he burst out, almost before Hazel had finished speaking.

"Be here by sunrise."

Hazel held out a hand. Sky shook it.


	6. Stirring the Pot

**Whelp. Happy Friday everyone! Have some dragons and extra-small Schnees!**

* * *

**6\. Stirring the Pot**

* * *

Hiking out to see Glacier—in knee-deep snow and numbing cold, alone, at night—was probably the stupidest thing Whitley had ever done in his life. So, of _course, _here he was a week later. His hand lay poised on the handle of the same side door. There was slightly less snow on the ground, but the temperature had dropped.

He was _not _wearing his coat. It had come out of his first misadventure at Glacier's stable thoroughly soaked and, given it was made of down, smelling like a wet duck. He'd told Father it happened visiting the gardens. Father had pointed out that he didn't really need it, since the entire manor was accessible via the underground tunnels, and had it sent off for cleaning.

Whitley might have seen it as a sign that he shouldn't have gone in the first place, but he didn't believe in that sort of thing. He_ did _believe, very firmly, in the concept of humans freezing to death. That should be enough to convince him to go back to his nice, soft bed.

He pushed the door open. The night air cut straight through all four sweaters he was wearing, the chill seeping into flesh and bone. Whitley shivered violently. Then, slowly, he started the long trudge to Glacier's stable.

When he arrived, his face had gone from red to blue and his nose was running. The stable door opened, and standing framed in the doorway was the same stable hand. Wordlessly, he shrugged off his jacket and draped it over Whitley's shoulders.

"You're eager to freeze, aren't you?" he said, moving aside to let Whitley enter.

"My c-coat is at the c-cleaner."

Rusty squinted at him, like he suspected a joke. "You're an odd one."

"Excuse m-me?!"

"Didn't mean nothin' by it. Just never met anyone who liked the cold so much." Whitley stared at him, puzzled. It wasn't like he went _looking _for freezing temperatures like this.

"Can I see G-glacier?" He breathed into his hands, trying to thaw his fingers and stop his teeth from chattering.

Rusty led the way, propping a shovel against the wall. Whitley tried not to think too hard about what it might be for. They walked to the very end of the stable, stopping outside the door of the only occupied stall. Normally they were designed so that dragons could poke their heads out, but there was a metal grate installed in Glacier's to keep him from lashing out at his handlers.

"Glacier?" Whitley called softly. He wanted to step forward, but Rusty saw him looking and held out a hand.

"Not just yet," he whispered. "See what he does. Then maybe we get you closer."

Hardly breathing with anticipation, Whitley strained his ears for any sound. The clink of chains... a scraping noise... then the eye was back.

Whitley froze, staring. The chain around Glacier's neck made a sound like the tinkling of windchimes as the great head tilted to one side. The eye looked into him, fathoms deep, unblinking.

He groped for words. He'd planned to say hello, but instead his mouth just hung open in disbelief. Glacier moved his head, as though he was trying to get a better look, and Whitley caught a glimpse of the muzzle around his snout. It was simple leather, dyed snow white to match the dragon's scales, and crusted with hoarfrost.

"We're coming a little closer now," Rusty said. Glacier kept staring. Slowly, feeling like his feet were moving through honey, Whitley inched towards the door. He could feel the cold emanating from it. Mist rose from the dragon's scales, like his whole body was breathing fog into the air.

Whitley felt frozen himself. He was hypnotized, eyes roving hungrily over the image in front of him. The proud frills, the power and grace in the cant of the great head... and the muzzle, and the chain, and the grate with its thick steel wires crisscrossing one another, woven into a diamond pattern.

He moved like a sleepwalker, closer and closer, his hand trembling with the desire to reach out. Rusty grabbed for his wrist and said, "Don't—" and all of a sudden Glacier lunged. The chain snapped taught with his head still about a foot away from the grate, the muscles in his jaw dancing underneath the leather muzzle. Deadly mist glittered as he huffed out through his nose, and for the second time in two weeks the faunus stable hand grabbed Whitley by the shoulder and hauled him away.

"Don't take it personal," Rusty told him several minutes later. Whitley was sitting in the doorway of another stall, on the opposite side of the barn. A patch of frost had spread across the sleeve of the man's jacket in spiraling fractal patterns. His mind felt oddly blank, torn between remembering how Glacier had looked... and thinking Weiss would have been able to touch him.

But dragons were animals—it meant nothing.

"I should go home," he decided. He wasn't even sure why he'd come here. It was pointless to risk losing a hand to frostbite just so that he could... what? Have a preview of his future? Prepare for his own egg?

No. It hadn't even crossed his mind. He didn't want an egg, he wanted... wanted...

"Master Schnee?"

Whitley looked up, startled, then realized he must have gotten lost in thought. Not something he should ever do in public.

"My apologies," he said, and moved to slide the jacket off and give it back.

Rusty shook his head. "Keep it for now. I don't want you freezing on your way back."

"But—"

"You can return it when you've got yours back from the cleaners," Rusty said, and something in his tone suggested he didn't believe Whitley's explanation of what had happened to his coat. He scowled. Why _else _would anyone walk around out here without one?

Part of him wanted to refuse the offer just for that, but he was still shivering and for the past week he'd been waking up with the sore throat he'd learned always preceded a cold.

"Thank you," he said instead, and found that he really did mean it. Rusty irritated him often, but so did most people—and his jacket was comfortable. Heavy and rough, but warm.

Whitley left it under his bed when he returned to his room. It wasn't as if this one would be much the worse for a bit of melted snow—unlike his usual coat it was more practical than fashionable—and he didn't want Father to see.

* * *

_I'm trusting you._

Emerald felt the words on her back like they'd been carved there with fire. She was jittery, and put a hand on the back of Jade's head to steady herself.

All of Haven felt like it was simmering, caught just on the brink of a rolling boil. Half the students were convinced the Council would be coming for their dragons next, or their friends' dragons, and had rallied around Char and Paprika. The other half were restless. They could feel the tension, and knew they'd have to take a side soon.

Of the four teachers, two were already poised to rebel against the council. Another was a lost cause—she'd been critical of Dragonmaster Lionheart for years because he was trying to give dragons more legal protection. The last...

Emerald knocked on his door.

Professor Rivers opened it, frowning at her over a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. "Can I help you?"

_Breathe. Follow the plan._ The thought came in Cinder's voice, and Emerald played up her anxiety for all it was worth. "It's Jade," she said, nudging her dragon forward. "I'm just worried, I heard the council was coming and..."

She saw a flicker of pain in his face. Yes—others had already come to him for this. "I'm sure it's nothing." He beckoned her inside. "Let me look at her."

As Jade followed her into the room, she put her head down and wheezed. The first time she'd done it—completely unprompted—had been while Emerald was kicking ideas around with Mercury, and it had scared her half to death.

Rivers frowned and inspected Jade's head, gently peeling back her eyelids. "No sign of infection..."

The wheezing continued. He bent down to listen at her chest, and his frown deepened. "Her heart rate is fine. Must be lung trouble."

"But—"

He held up a hand. "We have no reason to believe it's a congenital issue. Dragons _do _get sick sometimes, though not as often as humans."

Emerald looked at the floor. "It's... well, it's been going on a few weeks now, and I—"

"Weeks?" He scowled. "You should have reported this."

"I thought if I waited it would go away." She didn't meet his eyes—it was even easier to lie when she was _supposed _to look guilty and chagrined. "If there was really something wrong with her, I thought if I said anything she'd be culled."

Jade wheezed some more, then made an odd noise Emerald thought might be a cough.

Rivers rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I've never heard anything like this before. It could be a simple bronchial infection that will clear out on its own. We'll get her a more thorough checkup next week."

"Okay." A thorough checkup would reveal that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Jade, but by then it wouldn't matter. "But the council—"

"We will do everything in our power to keep your dragon safe," he said—dully, as if by rote.

"Will you?" Emerald crossed her arms. "I heard Lionheart sends letters to the council all the time, asking for better conditions." Those letters were why he was such an important target. Rivers was Lionheart's unofficial partner in all things administration, and was the only other person who could access those letters.

He twitched. _"Dragonmaster _Lionheart is committed to improving the lives of dragons at Haven academy."

"I don't want someone to write useless letters!" Emerald made her voice break, pleading. "Someone has to actually _do _something."

"I understand your concern—"

"No you don't!" Cinder had given Emerald all the information she could dig up, and he did. He absolutely did. "I can't just sit here and watch her die!"

"I wouldn't ask you to." His face softened. "I lost a dragon, when I was only a little older than you. Believe me when I say that I _know _how hard this is."

Emerald made herself look appropriately ashamed, though inside she wanted to sneer. He knows, does he? If Jade were _actually _sick she might have tried to hit him. She found Haven's lazy, ineffective negotiation with the council somehow even more infuriating than Vacuo's blatant cruelty. He had the nerve to act like asking politely for them to please stop killing his students dragons, so long as it wasn't too inconvenient, meant anything?

_Slowly, _she thought. _Slowly. _"You said you'd help her. What are you going to do?"

Rivers adjusted his glasses. "We'll start with a proper physical. I can move up the date if you like—"

"No," she said hastily, groping for an excuse. "If they come here, I want them to have to wait for the physical before they decide to..."

"Smart."

There was a pause.

"And?" Emerald prompted. Rivers blinked at her.

"Yes?"

"What are you going to do _after _the physical?"

"If all goes well, they'll prescribe some antibiotics. If it is congenital... there are still options. We can petition for her to be moved to a broodery that would accommodate her. There are still a few places left at Northfield—"

"She doesn't need to be sent away!"

"She'd be safe." His tone was clipped, now. Terse. "As cruel as it would be to cull her, it's hardly better to send her to fight Grimm with faulty lungs." Jade wheezed pitifully. Emerald started to worry she might lay it on too thick and give the game away.

"Okay." She almost scowled at the look on his face. Like he was proud that he'd just educated a child on the proper care and protection of dragons. It was important to let him have these moments, of course, so he'd be more likely to listen to her... but still irritating. "And the council will agree to that?" She blinked innocently at him, and watched as he grimaced like someone had just shoved his hand into a bucket of ice water.

"They often do. Your dragon—"

"Jade."

"Yes. So long as Jade doesn't have any record of violent tendencies, I'm almost certain they'd approve the request."

"Almost?"

"Well... they don't _universally _approve these requests, but the chances—"

"I don't want to take chances!"

"I know. The situation isn't ideal, but I swear to you that you have every reason to expect—"

"What are you going to do if they refuse?"

"There are alternatives we could look into. Sometimes private stable owners will take on dragons that have had successes in competitions."

_Yeah. Time to go for the throat._

"What are _you _going to do?" She crossed her arms and squared her jaw, imagined a world where Jade really was sick and this useless excuse for a teacher was the one protecting her instead of Cinder. "You keep talking about sending more _letters. _There are dozens of us. I've talked to people. We can't _all _get lucky hoping the council will decide to send our partners to a farm somewhere instead of murdering them!"

"We're doing everything we can."

"Everything that keeps _you _safe," she spat. "Everything except fighting _back."_

"This sort of thing takes time," Rivers insisted. "We're gaining ground in the council, new moderates have joined their ranks. It's all a matter of..."

"Being patient?"

He squeezed his eyes shut as if he was in pain. "I'm sorry. That was... I know future progress means nothing to you when you're in danger _now. _But we have a responsibility as riders to think about the big picture, and in the big picture attacking the council only gives more weight to those who suggest—" he cut himself off. "I can't discuss details, but as hard as I'm sure it is for you to believe it _can _get worse than this."

"Maybe," she said. "Maybe in thirty years you and Lionheart will change the law so they don't kill as _many _dragons. But maybe you only think what you're doing is _enough _because it's not _your _partner on the line."

She could see the moment when he started to waver, even as he tried to hide it.

"I can't force you to see our side of the problem. I can only hope that as you get older—"

"I'll decide one dragon doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things?"

"Of _course _they matter." He was angry now, but she sensed he was on the edge. Wobbling. Ready to tip over onto their side. "They always matter. But the council _are _changing."

"No they aren't." Emerald put a hand on Jade's shoulder and they glared at him together. "A council that kills _less _hatchlings for problems way out of their control isn't something to wish for. It's a world where that _never _happens. Where no one would even_ consider _it."

He didn't respond. She could see him foundering, groping for something to say. And then, without thinking, she gave him a final push. "Would Rosie want you to—"

"Where did you hear that name?"

The hesitation was gone. In its place was rage—not the frustration and anger from before but something cold and utterly inflexible.

_Shit. Shit!_ Everything Cinder had told her about Rivers was public record... but that was _not _the same thing as common knowledge.

"I... I looked it up, I thought—"

"Get out."

"But Professor—"

"I won't hold this against your dragon. I will do everything in my power to protect her. But _you_ need to leave. Now."

The door slammed in her face the second she backed out of his office. She was left standing there, frozen, the bottom dropping out of her stomach as the words,_ "I'm trusting you," _burned inside her mind.

* * *

"It's only been three days. What do you want?"

The voice broke the silence of the gloom of the Emerald Forest. It was deep twilight, that time of night when the sky is finally going from indigo to black. Earlier than usual for these meetings, but Sienna wanted to get this over with.

"I have a message." She stretched out a hand, offered him a scrap of paper. "Leave it in the hybrid's stall."

The stable hand plucked it from her fingers and unfolded it, reading the message inside. Sienna fought back a grimace. It only took a moment—the message was short.

"Yeah, no." He folded his arms and glared at her. "I'm not leading Blake into an ambush."

"We're not going to harm—"

The human laughed in her face. "Look, I'll tell you whatever you want about Beacon in general. I don't owe them shit, if you wanna fuck them up you can be my guest. But not the students. And definitely not Pit." He crumpled up the paper and tossed it to the ground. "Kindly fuck off."

He turned and stalked back the way he'd come without another word. Sienna stood there for a long moment, breathing deeply. The stable hand was still useful, even if he had been... belligerent, lately.

"Damn it, Adam."

It kept coming back to that. His foolish obsession was the reason she needed the deserter in the first place. Grimacing, Sienna picked up the crumpled message and slipped it into her pocket. She supposed she'd have to deal with this herself.

Damn Hazel, too. This was a complete waste of time, but she didn't want to make working with him any more difficult than it already was. And he'd made it very clear that he wasn't going to budge.

She didn't bother going back for the map of Beacon's patrols. If the Headmaster had half a brain they'd been changed already. Hopefully they'd at least been reduced since Adam had died.

By the time Sienna reached the dragonry's grounds, it was well and truly dark. She hadn't gone on a field mission in a while, but she only encountered one dragon on her way in. It wasn't exactly inconspicuous—she saw it long before it could have seen her. Circling around it took longer than she would have liked, but she slowly picked her way towards the center of the campus.

Keeping all four ears peeled for dragons or students, Sienna wandered the grounds. At first she was worried she wouldn't be able to single out the earth stables—how had Adam found them in the first place? Then she walked around the side of a dormitory, and it became trivially obvious. There were several sets of long, blocky buildings. She assumed the one that was covered in scorch marks was probably for fire dragons, passed it, and set her sights on the next row, where she could see mud wallowing pits.

Finally she stopped dead, staring at the shadowy alleyway formed between two of the stables. There was a pile of hay bales, a few rakes leaning against the wall... and a few scattered dents in one wall. Bullet holes.

Sienna stared at the ground there much longer than was wise. This was where he died—where the mess started. She clenched a fist. Time to start cleaning it up.

There was one stable hand still awake—not the human she and Hazel dealt with, but a raccoon faunus in his late twenties. She wasn't sure if he was supposed to be a night guard or if his heritage had just given him irregular sleep patterns, but either way she avoided him. While he swept the floor of one stable she checked the other two, peering at the names on the walls. A few times the dragons stirred in their pens. One woke up and peered into the darkness with moss-green eyes, but by then Sienna had moved past its stable. She crouched silently behind a bale of hay until it grumbled quietly and went back to sleep.

Finally the stable hand moved from the first barn to the second. She entered the building he'd just left through the opposite door, and within a minute she'd found the stall with Pit's name on it. Slowly, carefully, she retrieved her message, uncrumpled it, and slid it under the door.

He stirred.

Sienna froze, her heart pounding in her throat, staring as his tail twitched and his ears flicked. She eased herself back down the length of the barn, so that at the very least he wouldn't be able to see her. Then she heard a low growl, and the door started to move. She sprinted the last few steps and slipped out into the night. Heavy footsteps followed behind her, and she ducked into the narrow, shadowy place between the two buildings.

A heavy square head poked outside. Sienna's heartbeat thundered in her ears. Adam had been killed right here, maybe even by _that _dragon.

Pit sniffed, twice. Then, after a long moment, he retreated into the barn.

Sienna left the grounds with no one the wiser—only a pair of dragons wondering, each in their own separate stalls, who that new smell had belonged to.


	7. A Walk in the Woods

**Hi again! So, I'm still not out of extra chapters yet, and I'll be putting one up this Friday! Plus I'm on break at the moment, which will _hopefully _mean more productivity. Hopefully.**

* * *

**7\. A Walk in the Woods**

* * *

Click. Scrape. Thud.

"Here, let me get that for you!"

Click. The crutches hit the ground. Scrape. Her bad foot dragged in the grass as she took a step. Thud. Her good foot came down. Sky scurried over to the barn door and held it open, looking everywhere but at Blake.

"Thank you?" She was glad to not have to manage the heavy door, but she wasn't quite sure what to make of the way he was acting. Bystander's guilt from the night she was shot?

It didn't matter. She limped into the barn, wincing when she misjudged a step and one crutch jammed into her armpit. They'd released her today, and she wasn't used to moving around yet. As annoying as it was to have to use the crutches, just being free to walk around campus without a crowd of people around her... to let her attention slip without worrying that every shadow might be the first sign of an ambush...

Life was surprisingly good, considering the hole in her leg.

Blake came to a stop outside Pit's stall and knocked once. His head poked out, swiveled to stare at her... then he barked excitedly and threw himself at the door. It opened without resistance—he might have broken it otherwise—and he licked her face.

"Careful," she warned, when he nuzzled against her shoulder and almost knocked her over. "My balance isn't great right now."

He pulled away reluctantly, and she noticed for the first time that there was a scrap of paper stuck to his nose.

"What...?"

Pit shoved his head into her hand until she grabbed the paper. Then he watched her expectantly, tail twitching.

"Okay, then." Blake leaned the crutches against the wall, then used it to support herself while she examined the paper.

_Someone needs your help. Be at the edge of the Emerald Forest at midnight tonight and look for the tiger. Bring a friend or two if you must, but be discreet._

She read it over several times, then once aloud. Pit stared at her, then at the paper.

Blake managed a small smile. "Well. At least I'll be able to prove I've learned my lesson."

Pit cocked his head.

"I'll get the rest of RWBY," she said. "Can you round up JNPR and SSSN?"

* * *

Twelve riders. Well, riders-in-training. Weiss with pepper spray, Sun with a staff—actually a big stick he'd picked up on the way, but he figured it'd still hurt if he whacked somebody on the head with it. Yang and Pyrrha, who pretty much counted as weapons all on their own. Not to mention, twelve dragons. It was almost eleven, but after a long and grueling conversation with Sage, Zircon had eventually been convinced to follow them into the woods.

Some people might call it overkill. Some people would be wrong. Sun thought this was exactly as much kill as they should be bringing to a meeting that pretty much had "Trap!" written all over it. In bright red sharpie.

"I still think we should've told Ozpin," Neptune said, as they crossed the field the non-wind dragons had been learning to fly in. "Or at least gotten CFVY to come along."

"We're not exactly inconspicuous as it is," Sage pointed out. "Besides, Velvet knows where we are."

"But not that we're going to meet some shady criminal—what, four days? Four days after another shady criminal shot Blake. I feel like she would've tried a lot harder to stop us if we'd mentioned that part."

"Just so you know," Blake called out from where she was sitting on Pit's back, "I can hear all of you."

"Sorry, but it's true!"

"We'll be in sight of the school," Sun said, "and they're expecting _maybe _four people, if they figured all of RWBY would show up. Plus, I mean, Blake said the Fang only had the one dragon. There's literally no way we won't outnumber them by like three to one."

"Yeah, but why come at all?" Scarlet gestured at the approaching treeline, which Sun suspected looked a lot more forbidding to his human friends. To him it was just sort of... woods-y. Lots of leaves and twigs.

"The note said someone needed help." Sage shrugged helplessly. "Besides, the—" He glanced at Blake, who was now deep in conversation with her team, then went on a little more quietly, "—the one we _really _had to be worried about isn't around anymore."

"I still say it's a trap!"

Neptune opened his mouth, probably to agree, but before he got a chance Blake twisted around and signaled for them to be quiet. They were approaching the treeline.

Sun squinted up ahead. He and Blake were supposed to take point here, since they were the only ones who could actually see anything. Unless Huo or Fang set the forest on fire, which was... well, it was an option. Not a _great _option, granted, but—

Blake sat up straighter and pointed. Sun scanned the treeline again, but still couldn't see anyone. He frowned, confused, then finally spotted what she had—not a person at all but a simplistic carving of a tiger's head set in the trunk of a tree. They circled around it, found a note pinned to the back of the trunk with a knife.

It was covered in arcane scribbles. Sun squinted at it, then glanced at Neptune. He shrugged. "Don't look at me man, I can't even see it."

"It's code." Blake took the note from Sun, flattened it against Pit's neck and smoothed it out so she could see it better. "Just give me a second..."

"Code." Weiss narrowed her eyes. "I can only think of one group who would just _happen _to know a code you and only you could break."

"Yes, it's them. But if I'm right about the tiger... I don't _think _she'd want to kill me."

"Very comforting."

Blake hummed, mumbled something under her breath, then nodded. "Okay. It says there's a cave northeast of here, behind some bushes. And to keep everyone else away from the entrance."

"Uh-_huh," _Neptune said. "Nothing shady about that at all."

"There's one more line, um... 'An old friend will be there... we couldn't break the news. Maybe you'll have better luck.' What...?" Then she tensed, her hands jerking so violently that the paper tore. "Oh god, _Brand."_

Sun raised his hand. "Uh... are we supposed to know who that is?"

* * *

It took longer than Blake would have liked to convince the others to wait at the cave entrance. Her team sat just inside with their dragons, refusing to stay out of sight in case there was an ambush.

There wasn't. Just a dragon curled into a sullen ball in the shadows, looking much smaller than he actually was.

"Brand?"

He twitched. His head came up, his eyes opening wide. "Lake!"

Her heart wrenched. There was a metallic clatter as his neck stopped short, the chain around it going taught. It was attached to a ring welded to the cave wall, shut with a heavy padlock. She recognized the material—tungsten, one of very few metals that fire dragons couldn't melt through.

"Hey..."

Brand tried to extend his neck further. Blake walked closer so that he could press his forehead into her palm. He purred, licked her fingers. "Ad?" he asked. "See Ad?"

She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a croak. She couldn't do it.

"Pit?" she said instead. "Come here. Slowly, please."

He crept forward, sniffing curiously at the new dragon. Brand growled, louder and louder until Blake told Pit to stop.

"He's just going to try to take that chain off," she said. "Can you stay still for a moment? Please?"

"No." Brand snorted, and fire erupted from his nostrils. Blake flinched away, and she heard one of her friends take a step forward. She threw her arm out—he was wilder than the last time she'd seen him, she wasn't sure what he'd do if they all crowded in.

"Okay. Okay, Pit can move back." He blinked at her, confused, but did as she asked. Brand settled onto his haunches, but his golden eyes were narrowed with suspicion.

"Ad," he said again. "No 'It."

Adam would have had the key. Had their professors found it on his body? Blake had never asked. She might have to, now.

"Lake!" Brand snorted another gout of fire. "Ad! See Ad! Ad!"

Blake backed up a step. "I'm sorry... I can't... you can't see him."

Brand roared indignantly, rising up on his hind legs. His horns scraped the cave's ceiling.

"He's gone, Brand. I'm sorry, I'm so—"

"NO!"

Fire washed over the cave floor. Blake tried to scramble away, then yelped when she put her weight down on her bad leg. Pit caught her by the back of her shirt and dragged her back, hiding her behind one wing. He roared and Brand hissed—a noise like grease hitting a frying pan, the sound he made right before he—

"Move!"

Pit backed away with Blake hanging onto his neck, just in time for Brand to bathe the floor of the cave in fire.

"Lake lie!" Brand thrashed at the end of the chain, the metal began to glow cherry red around his neck, the chain creaked...

The chain.

Blake untangled herself from Pit. He protested, caught her scarf in his teeth. She touched his jaw, gently, tried to reassure him with a smile. It took a moment, but he let go.

"Blake, maybe you should—" Yang started to say, and Blake was sure she was thinking of all the times Fang had bitten her as a hatchling.

Brand had bitten Adam, too, until he'd started hitting him whenever it happened.

"I'm sorry," she said. Not that he was dead, but because she hadn't done more while he was alive. Hadn't been able to save Brand... had only barely managed to save herself and Pit. She limped closer, heedless of the fire.

Brand cut off the flame. He made a low, keening sound. She held out a hand. His jaws snapped shut just inches away, and she snatched it back, heart pounding.

"No! No Lake!"

It was hard to talk. "Okay," she managed, swallowing hard. "Okay. I... I'll come back tomorrow."

"NO!"

"I'll come back. Every day. I'll go if you want me to... but I'll keep coming back."

Another gout of fire. Blake let Pit drag her onto his back, and they left the cave. She caught one final glimpse of Brand. He'd curled up in that same corner, his eyes gleaming in the shadows under one of his wings.

* * *

The dragons were so subdued on the way back to Beacon that none of them spoke for several minutes after leaving the cave. Pit glanced over his shoulder every few minutes, even after the entrance had disappeared from view. Storm kept her head down, unable to think of anything except Brand's anguished roars.

It was Pit that broke the silence. "I'd do it again," he said, hunching his shoulders.

Storm had no idea what to say to that—looking around, neither did any of the others. Twiggy and Zircon had been there, but neither of them had actually _participated. _They'd been keeping the riders safe, not...

"Well, _yeah." _Huo tossed his head. "We're supposed to protect them, aren't we?"

"It's not like he didn't deserve it," Fang agreed.

Zircon whined and inched closer Sage, who almost tripped over his tail. "It's bad enough we're supposed to protect them by killing Grimm. I don't want to fight other riders!"

"Neither do I," Nymph said, nudging his side, "but we might not have a choice."

"It didn't feel like one." Pit was still walking at the front of the group, and he didn't turn his head to look at the others. "A choice, I mean. I couldn't really think about it."

Storm shivered. "I remember." She shot an apologetic look at Nimbus.

"I didn't think about Brand. I knew he had a dragon, Blake mentioned him, but..."

"You saw that chain," Nymph pointed out. "He might be better off without him."

Titan nodded. "It's like Mudslide and Cardin. He might be her rider... but that doesn't mean he makes her happy."

"So what I'm getting from this," Huo said slowly, "is that we should kill Cardin."

Nymph groaned. "Huo... Huo, no."

"I'm joking! Mostly."

Pit huffed out a breath. "Would being alone really be better?"

"Sure," said Fang. "I'd rather live wild in the mountains than deal with Cardin. Or go to the pits."

"Fang!" Specter hissed. "Don't say that!"

"What? At least I'd get to fight back that way."

"Can we please stop talking about this?" Ao Guang asked, shivering and shooting anxious glances at Ren.

"Yeah!" Storm said quickly. "We all have riders that love us, so we should focus on that instead of what could have gone wrong." Nimbus and Freya were both quick to chip in, changing the subject to their flying lessons.

Storm was just glad no one had asked her what she thought. She didn't want to say it, because she knew it would make Pit feel bad, but she wasn't so sure that Brand would be better off from now on. All she could think of was Tempest, looking into the eyes of the dragon that loved her rider almost as much as she did...

Could Brand really have been hurting worse than that when his rider was alive? Was Mudslide hurting worse than that right now?

* * *

"Are you out of your _mind?!"_

Sienna breathed in through her nose, slowly. "We needed Brand dealt with. Now he is."

Corsac slammed his hand down on the table. "You _gave _him to the _deserter!"_

It was a struggle, but she kept her temper down. "There wasn't any alternative."

"We could have killed him." The bass rumble came from the man sitting on Sienna's left. He went by the Lieutenant—Adam had known his real name, but the knowledge had died with him and the Lieutenant hadn't seen fit to resurrect it.

"Probably," Sienna allowed. "We could have brought a few dozen White Fang members into Beacon's backyard. Maybe Harbinger." Fennec shifted uncomfortably beside his brother. _"But, _there's no telling how many we'd have lost in the process. It wasn't worth the cost. Traitor or not, Blake can reason with him. The only other person who might stand a chance is Ilia."

"So _she _can handle the beast," Corsac snapped.

"She's still in Haven, and we didn't have time to wait." Sienna waved her hand. "It doesn't matter, now. What's done is done, and Brand is hardly going to follow the orders of a deserter if that means attacking his comrades."

"He didn't seem to have much trouble attacking us when Adam was alive."

"He is wild." The Lieutenant leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "The traitor may be able to calm him enough that he doesn't kill anyone. He won't take orders from her, or anyone else. He hardly took orders from Adam."

Sienna blinked. She hadn't expected support from him, but it was appreciated all the same. They had more important business to deal with. Brand was only one small part of the mess Adam had left behind.

"What of sister Ilia, and the humans?" Fennec asked. "High Leader Taurus had intended to break from them—"

"Not yet." Sienna rubbed the bridge of her nose. "We still need their resources. One successful hybrid won't make enough of a difference in the grand scheme of things. We've effectively _lost _a dragon in the past week."

"Of the four of us, only one has a dragon," the Lieutenant added. "We can't lead without strength."

"Or charisma," said Corsac. "Without High Leader Taurus—"

Sienna shook her head. "He doesn't need to be alive to be charismatic. We martyr him. He was killed by a human... the Schnee. And her designer dragon—that'll motivate people to bring that sort of power over onto our side."

"This would be easier if he'd managed to kill the Belladonna girl in the process," Fennec mused.

"We'll work with what we have. He went to reason with Blake, only to be betrayed and murdered by her teammates. Especially the Schnee. We can fill in details as we go."

"Who was it really?" the Lieutenant asked, clenching both fists.

Sienna grimaced. "Impossible to tell. He threatened Blake and the Schnee with a gun outside the earth stables. The dragons mobbed him."

"Is this from the human stable hand?" Corsac asked, his lip curling.

"Not directly. We had Perry talk to a few of his colleagues, the ones who cleaned up afterwards. Their descriptions... varied, but those were the common elements."

"Dragons don't kill without orders." The Lieutenant's voice came out low, more a growl than anything else. "The traitor... the Schnee... they killed him."

"And they _will _pay for it," Fennec said. "But first—"

"First, we need more dragons." Corsac smiled. "I believe the first egg will go to one of the two of you?"

Sienna glanced at the Lieutenant. His face was invisible—she _hated _those masks.

"You should have the first hatchling that survives," he decided. "I am not... charismatic. And I don't need a dragon to fight."

"Very well." Sienna hoped she'd interpreted the subtext correctly—was this his way of saying he'd support her taking the lead? "The next will be yours."

Too late, she noticed Fennec's ears twitching with suppressed anger.

"And the third will go to Fennec. We should make a list of those who should receive eggs after that—I'd prefer to have more than a dozen by the time we break with Cinder."

"A dozen?" The Lieutenant scowled. "That could take years."

"Successes will come more often as we improve the process." Sienna wasn't quite as confident in that as she pretended to be, but if it _wasn't _true they might never get out from under these humans. In that case... well. They'd have to rely on the tried and true elementals. Brand might not be as unique as Harbinger, and wouldn't be as powerful once the hybrid grew up... but he was a quite a lot more useful than dead hatchlings.

She grimaced. The benefits of the powerful hybrids far outweighed the cost, when the maximum number of riders they could trust to be loyal was limited... but she sometimes wished they didn't.

"Now," she said, "In terms of possible candidates—"

"Captains!"

All four of them froze and looked around. Perry poked his head into the tent, his face flushed. "An egg just hatched!"

They shot to their feet and sprinted towards the lab. He wouldn't have bothered to inform them if the dragon were dead or dying—this one might be viable.

Upon arrival, Sienna spotted the shattered egg first and noted its pattern—sandy yellow, with veins of dusty grey and blood red. Fire and wind. The first combination they'd ever tried, one that Cinder seemed oddly partial to.

A young boar faunus knelt on the ground next to the incubator on which the egg had been resting. He wore gloves all the way up to his elbows, and hanging from his right one...

Sienna's heart sank.

The hatchling blinked its eyes rapidly. They were a strange, murky brown, but even as she watched the color was leeching out of them. Its hide was covered with dried fluids from inside the egg, and blood from where it had cracked and split.

"I'm sorry," the technician said, shifting the infant dragon to his other hand. "She looked fine a few minutes ago."

_She._ Sienna decided she agreed with his assessment—the spiral of the horns struck her as feminine, though she couldn't have said why. She bent down, stroked the creature's tiny head. Scales came off on her fingers.

"Inject three more eggs," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "One with a higher concentration of fire, one with more wind... and try using less of each in the last while keeping the balance even."

The hatchling wheezed once, and stopped moving. Sienna strode away, hoping she looked busy and not rattled. She wasn't even sure _why—_she'd seen the hybrids die before, many times.

When she glanced down at her hand, she saw that a few pale yellow scales were still stuck to her skin. _She would have been mine..._

No. Her dragon would survive its first few hours. It would grow strong, and fight to defend their people. They weren't hatching pets... they were hatching weapons.

Even so, she couldn't stop thinking about those cloudy brown eyes. Couldn't help thinking... _I wish she could have been mine._


	8. A Dragon Napping

**Hey there everyone!**

* * *

**8\. A Dragon Napping**

* * *

Mistral was a completely different world at night.

Jade had never been this far from the dragonry in her life. She'd only been out in the city a few times, and always during the day. Now there were no open-air markets, no raised voices or chattering crowds. The only illumination came from streetlamps and tiny dancing lights that broke up the deep shadows between them. She tried to snatch one in her jaws, but Emerald put a hand on the side of her head.

"Careful," she murmured. "Those are made of glass. And Dust."

Jade stopped trying to bite the lights and simply watched, transfixed. When she moved closer, she could see that the lights were hanging on thin wires. It was the wind that made them dance.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?"

"Gud," Jade agreed.

The two of them turned a corner, winding along a narrow road that led further down the cliffs. There were more people the lower they went, though they were much quieter than the daytime kind.

"I'm sorry." Jade turned to stare at her rider, confused, and when Emerald patted her shoulder she noticed for the first time that she was shaking. "I didn't want you to meet her like this, when we've—when _I've _failed."

Jade hummed and nuzzled her shoulder.

"She's amazing." The shaking subsided, and Emerald smiled at her, eyes shining. "She's going to stop the council. You and all the other dragons in our year... you're going to be the last ones born into a world that sees you as worthless. They're going to _pay _for thinking they can throw you away."

It was hard not to be nervous—they weren't here to deliver good news. At the same time, Jade could feel excitement and eagerness expanding like a balloon in her chest. She'd grown up hearing all about Cinder and Strike, and she'd finally be able to meet them for the first time! Usually she would call Emerald or one of the other riders to give them orders, but the plan was close to its end now. She'd flown here in person and was staying in Mistral, so their final meeting with her would be in person.

"This is it." Emerald looked around, checking to make sure no one was looking, then disappeared into a nearby warehouse.

The inside was dark, with only a few unboarded windows high on the walls to let in artificial light from outside. Jade tensed, straining her eyes to see into the shadows. Then one of them moved, and two blue eyes opened. They glowed, smoldered, and seconds later there was a small island of light in the middle of the warehouse. The owner of the eyes crouched with her mouth partly open, flames flickering between her jaws.

Jade stared. The fire dragon was magnificent—all sweeping horns and stark black-and-gold stripes—but her attention was drawn instead to the rider. She was standing with her hand on the dragon's shoulder, and when her eyes caught the light it seemed almost like they, too, were made of flame.

This was the woman who had saved Emerald before Jade was born. This was the woman who had brought her egg to her rider. It was because of her that they were together... and because of her that they had the chance to fight back against the council.

Awed, she crouched down into a more submissive posture. Beside her, she saw Emerald start to shake again. She put one hand on Jade's shoulder to steady herself.

"Emerald. You have news for me." The hand twitched.

"The students have rallied around Paprika and her rider," Emerald said. "Half the first years' dragons have problems, and even the ones whose partners are healthy are terrified some minor behavioral quirk will get them culled. We spread the story about Tornado."

"Will they be ready in time?"

"We can set them off whenever we want."

"Good. And the letters?"

Jade tensed. She could smell her partner's anxiety and wanted nothing more than to gather her up and hide her under her wings... but it would be alright. Cinder might be disappointed, but they could fix it.

"Rivers won't cooperate," Emerald admitted. "He... he believes Lionheart's excuses about going through the proper channels."

Cinder shifted, and shadows fell across her face. "You should have had everything you needed to convince him."

"I—I'm sorry." Jade couldn't help it, she had to move closer, purring quietly to reassure Emerald. "I almost had him, but I thought... I thought talking about his dragon would seal the deal, but he... he must not talk about it, or maybe... I thought everyone would have known her name, but—"

"You failed."

Strike got to her feet and prowled around them in a circle. The light in her jaws danced, sending black shadows spinning across the concrete floor—shadows shaped like fangs. Cinder approached, taking Emerald's chin gently in one hand and tilting it upward. Jade felt tense, frozen, the awe and admiration of a moment ago curdling into cold dread.

But Cinder wouldn't hurt them. She was only angry because of what was at stake. No one Emerald talked about like that would hurt them.

"It should have happened tomorrow," Cinder said, her voice so soft that Jade stopped breathing for fear of mishearing her. "Other events are falling into place. Time-sensitive events. Atlas should be distracted, its forces split... your mistake might compromise an important piece of leverage."

"I—"

"Don't speak."

Jade felt the beginnings of a growl in the back of her throat, but swallowed it. Strike paced around them, mostly hidden in shadows, with only slight glimmers of gold revealing corded muscle and a predator's grace.

"You will solve this problem that you've created," Cinder murmured.

"W-we can still do it tomorrow. The students are ready to revolt, it would only take—"

"Many would join our cause _without _proof of Lionheart's incompetence," Cinder agreed. "How many would we _lose _because of your failure? Haven is more important than our other concern. Your team will find a way to obtain those letters. Do _not _disappoint me again."

"Y-yes."

"Return to Haven before your absence is noticed. I will call you tomorrow night—and I expect better news by then."

Jade was itching to flee, but she waited until Cinder and Strike had disappeared back into the shadows before she crouched down to let Emerald climb onto her back. Then she left the warehouse at a dead sprint, not stopping until they were back in the upper districts of Mistral, where the late hour meant that there was hardly anyone still awake.

She found a small alleyway and deposited her rider gently on the ground. Emerald clung to her neck, trembling. Jade didn't know what else to do, so she covered her with one wing and hid her from the world.

"I'm sorry. I can't believe I—it was so _stupid, _I should have..."

"No," Jade rumbled. She licked Emerald's face and tasted salt. "No. Em... gud."

Emerald let out a long, shuddering sigh. "I don't know what I would've done without you," she murmured. "Either of you."

* * *

"Nneh... Ooh... Nneh... Tuh..."

Nymph snorted, her tail lashing in frustration. Neptune stroked her nose. His cheeks hurt from smiling—his dragon was trying _so hard _to pronounce his name. Part of him felt a little bad, since she had it way harder than Huo or Ao Guang. At the same time... he didn't think it would feel nearly as special if it had been easier for her. Plus, well...

"Sun." Huo let out a long, obnoxious chuff of laughter. Sun rolled his eyes, giving his partner a playful shove.

Nymph glared at him. Then, haughtily, "Sun."

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Sun said, laughing. "I'm easy."

"Maybe you can make him do your last name," Neptune suggested. "That'd get him to quit being so smug about it."

"Nah. I wouldn't do that to Nymph. I mean, c'mon, _Vasilias?"_ He grinned and leaned back against Huo, his eyes going halfway shut as he stretched.

Neptune shook himself. "True," he blurted. "I guess I should change my last name to something simpler like—" _Abort, abort, do not suggest Wukong as a joke!_ "—uh..."

"Lie, maybe? Man, some people have all the luck. What do you bet Guang will be able to say Lie Ren before Zircon manages Sage?"

"Yeah! Uh... I mean, somebody would have to give him the idea first." Neptune forced a grin. That was _definitely _not what he'd been thinking when he started babbling about last names, and what if—

"Neh-toon!"

He squeaked and started showering Nymph with praise and chin scratches. "You're a _genius!"_

Huo made a grumpy sound, glaring at his sister through narrowed eyes. Nymph preened for a moment before she turned and gave Neptune a look like she was staring into his soul.

"Luh. Luh... Lurr..."

Neptune stared at her, brow furrowed. "Uh... you okay girl?"

"Lurr!"

"Oh!" Sun shot upright and stuck one finger in the air. "Maybe she's trying Lie Ren?"

Huo started to laugh, mimicking the noise Nymph had made and then making some really _bizarre _faces at her.

"No!" Nymph huffed and hid her face under Neptune's arm.

"Okay?" Neptune patted her head. "I have no idea what just happened..."

"Yeah, same here."

He tried to figure out what Nymph's stare meant, then eventually gave up. If she really needed to tell him something she'd find a way. Besides, it probably wasn't _that _important.

* * *

Titan landed heavily at the end of their flying lesson, the muscles in his chest burning. He bounded over to Pyrrha, stopping so that she could remove the weights on his back. Halfway through the last one, she froze. Glanced at the pile on the ground. Counted silently.

He watched as her face lit up—he'd been wondering since this morning when she was going to notice. The sand bags he'd just taken off with weighed about as much as she did.

She hugged him around the neck, green eyes shining with excitement, and Titan made as if to lift her up onto the saddle. Laughing, she let go and patted him on the nose. "We have to be patient," she said.

Patient because almost none of the other dragons could handle their riders' weights yet. And because their riders had lessons to learn before they got in the saddle—Storm, Nimbus, and Freya had tried to explain why, but none of them really understood either. They were tied to the saddle with all those buckles, and Titan privately thought that if a bunch of sand bags had the skills necessary to ride him then Pyrrha wouldn't have any trouble.

He heard a heavy thump on his other side, and turned to see Twiggy struggling with a much smaller pile of sandbags. Jaune sprinted over to take them off. He murmured something in her ear and stroked the side of her neck, but she still looked dejected.

"You'll get there," Titan promised.

Twiggy's ears drooped. "I'm still so far behind..."

"Think of all the other times you've had to fight that much harder than everyone else. You always rose to the challenge before—this won't be any different."

"I guess so."

They went for a walk around the grounds. It was shorter than usual—Titan and Twiggy were both exhausted, and the temperature had dropped so much that all four of them were soon shivering. He felt a little pang, watching the humans with their runny noses and red faces. By now he knew he was never going to be able to heat his scales for them.

"Okay," Jaune said, after a while. "I think we should probably get dinner."

He and Twiggy soon peeled off to head for the earth barns, while Titan and Pyrrha kept walking towards his stall. They didn't really _need _to do that anymore, but he was glad they'd kept up the tradition of walking with them to their stalls at night. Especially after everything that had happened recently.

Halfway across a field, a few stray snowflakes fluttered down. Pyrrha caught one in her hand and watched it melt. Titan felt them peppering his nose. He couldn't make her warm...

On a sudden whim, Titan barked once and stared significantly at his rider.

"Yes?"

He nudged her with his head, then crouched down. Looked at his own back, then at Pyrrha.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea..." Her eyes glittered with repressed excitement. Titan nudged her one more time. She smiled and clambered onto his back. "Titan, where are we going to—"

He took off at a dead sprint, delighting in the startled laugh he heard over his shoulder. It felt different like this, with no ramp. The running was easier. Taking off... he pushed hard with his back legs, brought his wings down, flapped twice—it felt like he was clawing at air that didn't exist, and all of a sudden he plowed into the ground, flopped over onto his side, and skidded another foot. There was a furrow in the ground behind him.

"Titan!" Pyrrha sprinted to his side—she must have jumped off right before he hit the ground. "I'm so sorry, I should have... are you alright?"

He picked himself up, testing his legs and wings. "Gud," he decided. His tail flicked behind him, and he curled himself up in embarrassment.

Pyrrha stood there, staring at the torn up grass. "I suppose we should... report this?"

They stared at each other for a long, tense moment.

"I'm sure it's fine," she said, and he nodded vigorously. "It'll grow back. So long as you're alright—"

"Gud."

"Right."

With a final glance at the small crater they'd left behind, they hurried the rest of the way to the fire stables.

* * *

Brand's cave looked much less ominous in mid-afternoon lighting. Weiss could smell a faint hint of smoke in the air, but apart from that there was nothing to suggest that this place was dangerous—just a thicket of brambles, and behind them an opening between two rocks large enough for both Specter and Pit to walk side by side... or for one _much _bigger dragon.

She and Blake hesitated at the entrance. Specter whistled, butting his head against Weiss' shoulder. She patted him absently on the nose, still staring into the dark cave.

"Are you _sure—"_

"Not really," Blake admitted. "But I want to make sure there's someone with me. Just in case."

Pit growled. Weiss had the impression they were both thinking the same thing—just in case better not happen.

"Won't seeing me make him... well... more aggressive?"

"It might." Blake shrugged helplessly. "He'd probably be angry seeing anyone but Sun. I don't... this is going to sound bad... I want to get that chain off him as soon as I can, but I don't really want him to meet you _after _that happens, in case it goes badly."

"If you say so. I still don't see why he has to meet me at all."

"He's been taught to hate humans. That's... it's going to go badly if he doesn't learn you're not all like Adam told him. He might lash out."

"...Right. Let's go."

They approached slowly, with Blake in the front. Specter tensed, moving his wing so that it half-covered her. She smiled and put a hand on his flank.

At first, it looked empty. Something moved in the thickest patch of shadows, and Weiss realized that Brand was curled up in a tight ball, his tail hanging limp and lifeless off the side of a rock. One eye appeared under his wing, narrowed in suspicion.

"Hey, Brand..." Blake limped slowly to the center of the cave, then stopped, leaning heavily on her crutches.

The scaly lump that was Brand twitched again, his tail curling slightly at the tip. He let out a low, rumbling growl. His head stayed hidden under his wing as he said, "Knee..."

There was an awkward pause. Specter and Pit glanced at one another, just as dumbfounded as their riders.

Finally, Blake got it. "Oh, Schnee."

Brand rose onto his haunches, his wings folding onto his back, his neck curving and his eyes glittering in the dark. "Knee..." he rumbled. "Bad." Weiss swallowed an unexpected lump in her throat. She'd heard that plenty of times before... but it was different coming from a dragon.

"It's okay. This one's not bad, I promise."

_"Bad."_ Smoke curled between Brand's lips as he spoke. Specter crept closer to her, tensed and ready to intervene.

Weiss moved. Brand hissed, jerked his head so that the chain around his neck rattled. She sat down, very slowly, moving her hands out to her sides. Relaxed. Specter tried to move in front of her, but she put out a hand to stop him.

"It's alright," she said quietly. "I'll stay over here, where I can't do anything bad."

"Bad," Brand grumbled, but he wasn't poised to attack anymore. Instead he sulked, his head once again mostly hidden behind his wings, glaring at Blake and blowing out puffs of smoke that made all their eyes water in the close confines of the cave.

There was a long silence, during which the air turned hazy and unpleasant. Brand dragged his claws against the stone underneath him. Specter and Pit both put their paws over their ears, and Blake cringed as if she'd just been stabbed. Weiss forced herself to stay still, her hands resting on the cave floor. Nonthreatening.

Satisfied that they were all deeply uncomfortable, Brand spoke again. "Ad," he said, his tail twitching. "Wuh... Wan. Tuh. Ad."

"I can't do that, Brand. I'm sorry, but he's gone."

"No." Brand set his jaw and glared.

"You know me. You know I... I wouldn't lie to you about this."

His tail whipped around, cracking against the cave wall. "Lake... Guh. Gone."

"...I know. I'm sorry, but I had to leave."

"Kuh. Urr... Duh."

"I don't understand." Blake glanced at Weiss, but all she could do was shrug helplessly. "What are you trying to—"

"Buh... Bih... Tuh."

"Brand, I don't—"

"Tuh. Truh... Ay... Turr."

This time, they all got it. _Traitor._ Blake let out a little _oh,_ swayed slightly where she stood.

Pit growled, low in his chest. All of a sudden Brand lashed out, snake-like, his head coming to a sudden halt as the chain snapped taut. He hissed, smoke roiling, and Blake scrambled backwards as well as she could with the crutches. Weiss jerked to her feet and put her hand out. Brand's eyes glowed like embers nestled in dry leaves...

"Okay," Blake said hurriedly, "Okay, it's okay, I—"

"Go!" Fire flickered between Brand's jaws. "Go 'way!"

"I'll be back tomorrow," she promised, then grabbed Pit's head and let him half-carry her out of the cave.

Outside sunlight slanted in through the branches over their heads, and the air was cool and clean where it had been hot and smoky. Blake stood near the entrance to the cave, shaking, one arm thrown over Pit's neck to keep her upright. He whined softly and pressed his head against hers.

"I'm alright," she said. "It's fine, I just..."

Weiss stepped forward, her arms spread slightly in a silent invitation. Blake nodded, and she pulled her into a hug. Pit purred, and she could feel Specter nudging both of their sides. They stayed like that long enough that she started to panic—when was she supposed to let go? Was there a signal she'd never learned about?!

"Thank you," Blake murmured, then let go. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"Don't be." Weiss studied a nearby rock covered with purple lichen. "It's... harder, I think, hearing bad things from dragons."

"All he knows about you is your name—"

"And all he knows about _you _is what that..." Weiss came up blank—there wasn't a scathing enough word she was willing to use in front of Specter. "That _barbarian _told him."

"I know." Blake sighed. "It's... it's pathetic, but it still hurts knowing what he used to say."

"It's not pathetic." _Knowing someone's a monster doesn't mean you stop wanting their approval._ "Though I have it on much better authority that you're... an incredible person." Even after all this time, she still stumbled a little on the compliment. She wasn't used to just _saying _things like that. Especially when they were true.

"...Thanks."

There was a pause. Weiss bit her lip, then said, "Listen... I know it's important to be there for Brand. None of this is his fault. But I can't help thinking that it might not be very... safe."

Blake took a shaky breath. "If Adam had brought Brand to Beacon, he might not have died."

"I suppose..."

"But he didn't. He chained him up." She hugged both arms around her middle. "I think he knew Brand wouldn't want to hurt me. He used to... used to ask him not to."

In that instant, Weiss wanted nothing more than to drag the man back from the dead and kill him all over again. Instead she drew Blake into another hug and said, "If you need to do this, I understand. It's just that, well... be careful, alright?" _Deadly mist pools outside a stable door, icy fractals spreading wherever it touches..._

"I will."

Another silence. Then Blake looked around and muttered a curse under her breath.

"What's wrong?" Weiss asked, alarmed.

"I... um..." She lifted one crutch. The other was conspicuously absent.

They ducked back into the cave, Weiss already dreading what Brand might do. Blake had been standing, what, ten feet away from where he was curled up? If he started breathing fire... Pit could carry her back to Beacon, but what about—

"Oh."

The crutch was propped carefully against the cave wall, right at the edge of the chain's reach. Brand was curled up as far away from it as he could get, watching them from under one wing. Blake limped over with Pit's help and tucked it under her arm.

"...Thank you."

His tail twitched. Then he hid behind his wing.

Outside, sunlight glinted off a few dimples in the plastic of the crutch. Marks where Brand's teeth had been. They were tiny—as if he'd taken great care not to break it. Blake ran her fingertips over them and smiled.

* * *

"Hello?"

Whitley took a cautious step into the barn, Rusty's hood pulled low over his face to protect his ears from the cold.

"Rusty?" He moved to unzip the stable hand's jacket, then thought better of it. The barn was freezing as usual, and he wanted to keep it on as long as he could. His shoes made unpleasant slapping noises on the tiled floor. They were soaked through—yesterday his waterproof boots had also been taken for cleaning, even though they'd looked perfectly fine to him.

He was numb from the knee down. As he stepped carefully towards Glacier's stable, a full-body shiver ripped through him. His nose was running. "Rusty!" Whitley called again, feeling suddenly impatient. He was already dreading the trip back to the manor, and tossed his own coat—now freshly laundered and smelling like fabric softener—carelessly over a nearby stall door. He'd come back for it once he found—"Rusty! Hello?"

Ugh.

Whitley stamped his way to the end of the barn, then crossed his arms and glared at the door to Glacier's stall. He wasn't sure he dared call out... maybe Rusty was outside?

No. He marched up to the door, peering through the mesh. This was _his _legacy too, he couldn't keep running to an old stable hand for guidance. His breath frosted in the air as he leaned closer. The tip of his nose touched steel.

Inside, he could see a sullen lump curled against the far wall. The chain coiled around the room, tangling with the end of Glacier's tail. Whitley froze, wishing his heartbeat would slow down. The sight felt stolen, precious... he pushed his forehead against the grate, letting the cold bite into his skin.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he pulled back. His face was numb to match his throbbing feet. The manor, and his room with its heated air and warm blankets, suddenly seemed much more palatable. Still... he wanted to see those eyes again.

"Glacier?" he whispered.

No response.

Again, louder. When the dragon still didn't react, he looked around, half-expecting Rusty to jump out of the shadows and scold him for being so reckless. Slowly, hardly able to believe his luck, he unlatched the door... pushed...

It opened without so much as a whisper, the hinges well-oiled. Frost crunched under his shoes as he moved further inside, until he reached a spot he thought was just outside the radius of the chain.

"Glacier?"

Nothing. Not even a twitch. Whitley frowned—did he normally sleep this heavily? He moved a little closer, heart in his throat, dread creeping up like bile... but no. Glacier's chest rose and fell, so slowly that for a moment he almost thought he was imagining it.

Some animals fell into torpor during the winter. Whitley didn't think dragons were among them... should he get Father? The stable hand?

That sounded better. He turned and sprinted for the door, only to nearly bowl over a middle-aged faunus with two pointed fox ears and a face Whitley didn't recognize. He stopped dead, glancing from the stranger to the stall behind him.

"Where's Rusty?" he demanded.

The man stared at him for a moment, his mouth gaping open. Then he squinted, peering under Rusty's hood, and laughed. "Look at that, it's a Schnee! I guess one of you _can _tell the difference."

Alarm bells went off in Whitley's head. He screamed for Glacier, but was cut off when the man kneed him in the stomach. Then he was on the floor, gasping for breath. There was no sign of movement from the stall.

A hand came down and grasped him by the hair, _hard._ "I better call the others," the strange faunus said, smirking. "Not much point breaking in now, is there?"

"W-what did you do to—"

The faunus slid a switchblade out of his pocket. Whitley shut up.

He tried to think of what to do, but his mind had gone completely blank—there was only white noise, and he couldn't even move his numb hands when the faunus started tying them together with a length of rope.

"Follow me, and don't make trouble," he said. "Or we can see if your family really _does _bleed icewater. Got it?"

Whitley nodded frantically.

There was movement at the front of the barn. Four others walked in, all faunus. Rusty wasn't among them. They were rolling something between them—almost like a giant wheeled cart, one that only barely fit through the massive doors. It was crisscrossed with tough leather restraints, all much too big for a human.

_Oh._

"You won't _believe_ who I found," drawled the fox faunus, clapping Whitley roughly on the shoulder. He flinched, shaking from cold and from fear, still in his soaked shoes and Rusty's warm winter jacket.

"Looks like he decided to make this real easy for us."


	9. Domino

**Hello again! Fairly short chapter this time around, but I will be back on Friday!**

* * *

**9\. Domino**

* * *

A door slammed shut.

Emerald jumped despite herself, then glared at Mercury. "Well?"

"No luck. Old bastard won't budge."

Her eyes squeezed shut and she took a deep, shuddering breath. "We still have time," she said—but they didn't. _Tonight. It has to be tonight. _She'd rather die than disappoint Cinder again. "Maybe if we send someone else—"

"Yeah, no." Mercury kicked off his boots and flopped onto his bed. "Face it, Em. That bridge is _torched."_

"So what _do _we do?" Ilia asked.

Neo gestured at her, a silent _'What she said.'_

"Fucked if I know."

Emerald squeezed both hands into fists. Were _any _of them taking this seriously?! "We don't need _Rivers. _We need the letters. So... we steal them, somehow."

"Cool." Mercury lay back, propping his legs up against the wall. "Anybody in here know how to crack a safe in, like... two hours?"

"Fine, we get the combination from him!"

Neo snapped her fingers, then spread her hands while raising one eyebrow. When the others only stared at her blankly, she heaved a sigh and scribbled on a scrap of paper. She held it up—'How?'

Mercury snorted. "I mean... he doesn't have a dragon. It's not gonna be that hard to threaten him. What, is he gonna _die _for the council?"

"Then what?" Ilia asked.

There was a short pause while Mercury thought it over. He shrugged. "Kill him?"

_"No," _Emerald and Ilia both snapped at the same time, while Neo put a hand over her face.

"What? I'm just saying!"

"Leaving a corpse behind is worse than him telling his sob story to the council," Ilia pointed out. "Too easy for them to pin that on us."

"I could probably make it look like an accident."

"And the council would still blame Cinder afterward. Even if it _didn't _look incredibly suspicious, due process isn't exactly their middle name."

"We're not killing anyone!" Emerald burst out. "Rivers whining about being threatened won't make us look that bad. The council saying he was murdered will." She looked directly at Ilia. "You'll have to do it."

"Hey, _you _were the one who screwed it up in the first place!"

"Mercury and I are supposed to look like bystanders, remember?"

"Yeah," Mercury agreed. "And we can't exactly have silent but deadly interrogate the guy."

Neo glared at him.

"C'mon. What are you gonna do, scribble at him? Real scary."

She showed him the only sign he understood. He opened his mouth—

"We don't have time for this!" Emerald stared both of them down. She wouldn't fail Cinder again—_especially _not because of these idiots. "Ilia, will you do it?"

Ilia went a sullen, poisonous green, but she nodded. "Fine. I'll lure him onto the grounds and jump him there. Then I'll text you the combination."

"While we break into the Dragonmaster's office and kick off the party," Mercury said. "Sounds like fun."

* * *

It was already dusk at Haven. Heavy shadows cloaked the practice field, concealing Justice as he lay sprawled in the grass. He would have been invisible if he hadn't twitched every so often, letting out pathetic moans.

Finally, he heard two sets of running footsteps.

"I don't know what's wrong with him!" Ilia was saying. "He just collapsed!"

"I'll call the infirmary."

He cracked an eye open. There was a human kneeling beside him, worry lines standing out on his forehead as he tapped on his scroll. A lazy swipe of Justice's tail slapped the device from his hand. He rolled to his feet, pacing in a slow circle around their prey.

"Look at that." Ilia smirked. "He must be feeling better."

Rivers swallowed hard and turned to look back at the academy. "What—"

Justice pounced. His forepaws slammed into the human's chest and bore him to the ground. He struggled for a moment, then went limp.

"Wh... why..." He squirmed, his breaths coming quick and shallow. Justice eased the pressure, bringing his head in close to the human's face so he could feel the heat of his breath.

"I have a question," Ilia said. "You tell me what I want to know, and you can go back to your comfy little office."

"You..."

"The old man has a safe. What's the combination?"

The human struggled again. Justice dug in his claws, then pushed down when he tried to shout. All that came out was a small croak.

"Okay," Ilia said, after a moment. "I think he gets the picture."

Justice eased up again. The human coughed and gasped for breath. "You want... money?" he wheezed.

"I want the council's letters." Ilia nodded at Justice. He heated his scales—not enough to burn, but enough to show that he could. "Do you _really _want to protect them this badly?"

The human's jaw set. Justice squeezed again, his claws just barely drawing blood, smoke curling from the man's shirt. He pressed down, watching as the human squirmed and gaped like a fish. Finally his hand thumped against the ground once... then again and again, faster and faster, frantic.

Ilia nodded, and Justice let him breathe again.

"T-twelve," the human stammered. "F-forty-three. Uh, eight..."

When he was done the human smelled like blood, burned cloth, and fear. Ilia was smiling—the human couldn't be cruel now that he'd been made weak.

This was how it should be.

* * *

Neo's scroll buzzed. She slipped it out of her pocket, glanced at the screen.

— 12 43 8 25 33 2. Rivers tied up outside.

_Go time._

Whisper had already flown her onto the roof, making sure to keep the building between them and Benedictus, an earth dragon belonging to the professor loyal to the council. He would eventually find Rivers and raise the alarm—but she'd been studying their patrol patterns for weeks. It would be about an hour. She had less than that to get in, grab the letters, get out, and start a riot with Ilia.

All while Emerald and Mercury sat around looking innocent.

Neo rolled her eyes and went in through Lionheart's window. So she was doing way more than her fair share of the work—what else was new? She pictured Roman gasping and clutching his chest in mock-indignation, and smiled.

Inside, the office was dark and deserted. That was good—Emerald had texted her about ten minutes ago saying she'd spotted Lionheart talking to another professor in the courtyard, but that wasn't completely reassuring. She usually had better information than this going in. If Roman knew she was trying to pull something _this _rushed...

Safe. Safe. Where was the safe?

Neo peeked behind a painting near the heavy oak desk, found blank wall. Knocked. _Nope._ She peeled back the carpet, checked all the drawers on the desk. Finally she tugged on a bookcase and felt it slide forward. The safe was built into the wall behind it.

She clicked in the combination without looking at Ilia's text. Inside was a mass of papers. Financial documents, bank statements, everything she'd need to clean out Haven's accounts. She ignored most of it—Roman had probably just twitched without knowing why—and finally found a small stack of envelopes wrapped in a rubber band. Grabbing one at random, she tugged it open and skimmed it.

_...hope you will consider relocating Celeste to Harvey Mills Broodery ... a warm, caring personality with no violent incidents to speak of..._

Another envelope. This one a response from the council.

_...cost of reimbursing the rider is a fraction of the upkeep required to house and feed a fully grown dragon that cannot fulfill its basic purpose. We regret to inform you..._

Something ugly bubbled up in her stomach. These were the letters.

She shot a last wistful glance at the remaining papers, then opened the office door and slipped out into the hallway, relocking and closing it behind her. All without a hitch—except for the fourth year that had been walking by, and who had frozen in place upon seeing her.

Neo stared at her. The fourth year stared back.

"Is it time?" the fourth year whispered.

Neo blinked. Then, slowly, she nodded.

"Good."

* * *

Word spread.

Whisper and Justice split up—he took the fire and earth barns while she handled wind and water. Some of the dragons woke up groggy when she came through their stables, blinking in confusion and asking their neighbors what was happening. The rest already knew. They looked at her with fear, excitement, rage... and all of them spread the news to their neighbors, fanning out to the other barns, waking their riders.

Meanwhile, Whisper knew that Neo and Ilia would be posting Lionheart's letters to and from the council where the students would see them. Some were on the walls of the dormitories, others hanging from lampposts or scattered on the ground. They just looked like squiggles on paper to her, but already she could hear angry shouts in the distance.

"Are we going to let them kill us?" Justice roared, flames licking at the air as he spoke. Whisper let him rally them—he was better at being angry. She stuck to the shadows once she'd spread her message, waiting.

The first professor to respond was one of theirs—her fire dragon let out a piercing howl. After that, no one could stay asleep.

A fight broke out. Whisper sprinted over to where two dragons were scuffling, batting at one another with their paws. They weren't using their claws or their powers, but their riders showed no such restraint. She prodded them apart with her tail.

"You're going to get us _killed," _the smaller one hissed. "What is wrong with you? The council is going to come and—"

The bigger one put a hand on his dragon and said, "Let them."

Somehow, a fire started in the cafeteria. It didn't get very big—a water dragon that belonged to one of the fourth-years put it out within a few minutes—but soon after that two brawling earth dragons crashed through a nearby wall and part of the roof caved in. Lionheart still hadn't made an appearance.

Whisper couldn't find Neo. She slipped around the back of the fourth year dormitory, feeling a slight twinge when she saw that a nearby statue had lost her head. Then she heard another roar and recognized Justice.

She found him in the courtyard, crouched as though he was ready to pounce, Ilia standing on his back and clinging to his neck for balance.

"This is not a protest," she said, her voice carrying over a sizeable crowd of nearby students. Distant sounds punctuated the statement—a crash, shattering glass. "The council has made it _clear _that they don't care about protest... and Lionheart obviously doesn't care about dragons."

A rumble went through the crowd. Then Paprika emerged from the press, Char sitting on her back. "He told me he would petition them!" He didn't have any real skill at public speaking, but there was enough raw fury in his voice to make up for it. "They messaged him back _days _ago saying they don't give a damn! As long as it's _cheaper _to kill her!"

"It's time we stop pretending these _petitions _are anything more than an old man screaming into the void," Ilia snarled. "It's time we stop taking _promises _and _reassurances _from people who only want to keep us down!"

The crowd cheered. If there were any council loyalists around, they were staying out of the way. Emerald and Mercury would be among them, biding their time.

"This isn't a question of _politics," _Ilia spat. "It's our _lives. _Our _partners' _lives. We're fighting for survival." Justice tossed his head, smoke billowing from between his jaws. "But we're _not _doing it alone."

A murmur in the crowd. Whisper recognized that as her cue, jumped to the front of the press and roared her approval. Others mimicked her, and the ground shook with the fury of dozens of assembled dragons.

"A few weeks ago, we were contacted by an outside group," Ilia said. "Their leader is on her way. And we're going to show her... to show the _council..._ that they can't come for one of us without dealing with _all _of us."

The crowd cheered again... and then silence fell. Seconds passed. Neo had explained to her that the timing here would be the trickiest part of the whole thing—Emerald and Mercury would have warned Cinder that it was starting, but if she was delayed too long the tension and fervor Ilia had built up in the crowd would dissipate.

Somewhere far in the distance, a dragon shrieked. It echoed off the mountains to the north of Haven Dragonry, and Whisper felt a shiver of excitement run through her.

Strike roared again as she drew closer—a golden speck highlighted against the night sky, like a star was coming down to greet them. She swept over the school, knocking a decorative weather vane off the top of the tower that housed Lionheart's office.

Justice and Paprika moved out of the way, standing so that they were on either side of Strike as she landed. She flared her wings, showing off the slender curve of her neck, the stark black and gold stripes on her scales... and Cinder, who was standing in the saddle. Unlike Ilia, she didn't need to hold on to keep her balance once Strike had settled.

"I'll keep this brief," she said. The crowd was dead silent. "I don't know why you signed on to become dragon riders—everyone has their own reason. Whatever you were before you came here... whatever you _wanted... _you've been given a gift. The most precious gift in this world. A partner that loves you, wholly and unconditionally.

"There are two kinds of people here tonight." Piercing eyes roved over the crowd. "When you look at your partners, what do you see? A magnificent creature, fierce and strong and loyal, who would give its life for you without question?" She ran a hand along the striped neck in front of her, and Strike arched into the touch.

"Or do you see a tool to be _used _as you see fit?"

The biting question sent a ripple of anger and disgust through the crowd. Cinder smirked. "For the former group... you have a choice to make. Are you willing to give up your own comfort? Your safety? Will you risk your life for your partner, like they would do for you without question? That is the position the council has put you in—you can bow and scrape and let _them _decide whether your dragon lives or dies... or you can come with me."

She held up a hand as the crowd shifted, poised to shout. The smirk widened, showing a hint of teeth. "To the latter group... I only have one thing to say. _Run."_

* * *

Haven was in chaos.

Rudder struggled against a crowd of people fleeing the courtyard where Cinder and Strike had landed. He knew he wasn't supposed to get too close, but he thought he could at least get a last glimpse of Whisper and Justice.

By the time he made it there, a swarm of dragons and their riders were already in the air. He recognized the striped form of Strike at the head of the group... then a flash of grey. Maybe Justice, maybe some other fire dragon that looked a little like him. Either way, Rudder needed to get away from here.

He followed the flow of students who had escaped the courtyard after Cinder's speech. From what he could see, they made up less than half the school. Almost all the first-years were gone—probably because many of them had dragons with disabilities that the council would find if they stayed. Rudder was just thankful he and his siblings had all been lucky enough to escape the strange surge of health problems in their age group.

Finally, he rounded a corner, passing over the rubble of a smashed statue of a group of human riders. Mercury was there, and greeted him with a pat on the head. Rudder warbled sadly and looked up at the cloud of dragons in the sky. It was impossible now to recognize any of them. He picked a random grey dot and watched it fade into the distance, imagining that it was his brother.

"C'mon." Mercury nudged his shoulder. "You knew they were going."

He did. It still hurt.

He walked with Mercury through the school, wincing every time he saw a shattered landmark. Here was a lantern he'd found when he was still small enough for his rider to pick him up, where he'd hunted the moths that circled around the light at dusk. It was overturned, the metal warped by a blast of fire.

There was the hill where he'd sat with Justice the first time, ripped up by scuffling dragons, one of the trees now toppled onto its side. Rudder looked away and told himself it didn't matter. It wouldn't have been the same alone, anyway.


	10. So Be It

**Hello! I'm back with more dragons!**

* * *

**10\. So Be It**

* * *

Classes were canceled.

Weiss sat with her team, JNPR, and SSSN, all of them crowded onto two couches in the student lounge. The television was on. Lisa Lavender was talking.

_"...still no confirmation from Dragonmaster Lionheart, but eyewitnesses have reported that more than half the student body has gone rogue."_

"Damn," Sun said quietly. Jaune rubbed his eyes, blinking blearily at the screen. It was six in the morning—the story had broken at five and woken them up.

_"In light of the damage done to the school building, classes have been suspended until repairs are complete ... no information yet on what will happen to the remaining students. So far there have been no confirmed deaths, but Professor Neil Rivers has been admitted to the hospital with scratches and burns..."_

"I... don't know how I feel about this," Yang admitted.

Ruby pulled her knees up onto the couch and wrapped her arms around them. "Me neither. I'm glad the council can't get to any of those dragons, but..."

The screen in front of them switched to footage of Haven academy. Statues had been smashed, there was a hole in the wall of one building, and a fire dragon had left a great charred streak across the front gate.

"It happens," Blake said quietly. "Sometimes you might agree with someone in theory... but not the way they put their ideas into practice."

"I mean..." Sun gestured at the television. "It's not like they killed anyone."

"I'm not saying they did, but starting like this isn't a great sign."

"They didn't start like this," Ruby said. "They started with the festival. That voice... I think it's the same as the woman who led the students away."

Weiss frowned at the screen. A reporter was interviewing one of the students who had stayed behind. _"Do you know why the rioters targeted Professor Rivers? You seem shaken up... Were you caught up in the violence? Some students have said that the rioters attacked those who refused to participate, would you like to comment on..."_

She pursed her lips. "Whoever she is, I doubt she's a _complete _angel... but there's definitely a slant to the news."

Jaune blinked in confusion. "But..."

"No, you're right." Blake pointed at the student. "They've spent almost twice as long on him, and he's obviously angry. That girl back there doesn't look bothered at all, and I don't think I've heard her talk yet."

Yang groaned. "This sucks. I wish I was there, at least that way I'd know for sure what happened."

"I mean—" Ruby started to say, but just then her scroll went off. She frowned, dug it out of her pocket, and held it to her ear. "Hello?"

There was a pause.

"Uh... yeah. Should I—oh. Okay!" Ruby held the scroll out to Weiss. She stared at it, one eyebrow raised. "It's for you."

_What?_ Gingerly, she took the scroll.

"Weiss."

"Winter? How did you even get this number?!"

"That's not important right now. Listen, have you heard about—"

"Yes, I know. I'm watching it on the news right now."

"Not that." Winter sighed—she sounded tired. Alarm bells went off in Weiss' head.

"Winter? What's wrong?"

"Whitley is missing."

Weiss almost dropped Ruby's scroll. _"What?! _Since when?"

"Since yesterday morning."

She stood up, walking a few paces away from the couch and trying to ignore the concerned looks prickling at the back of her neck. "How did I not know about this?"

"Father has been trying to reach you."

_Oh._ Yesterday her scroll had started ringing ceaselessly. She'd frozen up until Ruby had gently poked her shoulder and asked if she was okay. The thought of answering after _five _missed calls had tied her stomach in knots, so she'd turned off her scroll and shoved it under her mattress.

Weiss took deep breaths, trying to keep the room from spinning. "Has there been any... any message from whoever...?"

"Not yet. Listen... Glacier is gone too."

"But how would they even—?"

"I don't know. Father is looking into it. He fired most of the stable hands."

"Most?"

"One vanished."

Her heart sank. "Who?"

"I don't remember the name. He was a faunus, and with the timing... it's likely he let the White Fang in. I can't think of anyone else who would have the motive to do something like this."

Standing up had been a mistake. _"Do I put it over the scar, or make you nice and symmetrical?"_

"Weiss?"

Winter and Blake had spoken at almost the same time.

"Call me again if anything happens," she said. "I'll get my scroll..."

"I will. Father will want to talk with you as well."

A jolt went through her. "Does he know?"

"Know what?"

"Nothing." He couldn't know. Ozpin had kept the whole incident quiet, so that the council wouldn't start asking questions about Pit.

"Weiss—"

"I have to go. I'll talk to Father, just..."

"I'll keep you informed."

"Thank you."

She snapped the scroll closed. It dangled from nerveless fingers until Ruby gingerly took it back.

"Weiss?" Yang this time. "Are you okay?"

"Not really," she admitted, groping for the couch and sitting down on one of its arms. "Someone kidnapped my brother." It sounded stupid out loud. Whitley, _of all people, _who lived in a virtual fortress and hated taking risks. She didn't even _like _him most of the time, but now she couldn't stop picturing the muzzle of a gun, feeling the unwanted grip on her shoulder...

People were talking. They sounded as confused as she felt—she heard Jaune blurt out, "You have a brother?" and almost laughed. Blake sat down next to her and put a hand on her back, which helped. Weiss came back to herself enough to realize that she should get her scroll and call Father.

"I don't know how it happened," she said, answering a question she was fairly sure someone had asked. "Yang, Ruby... I left my scroll under my bed. Would you mind—?"

Ruby was in the doorway in a flash. "Yeah! I'll be right back."

Slowly, Weiss explained the situation as she knew it. Then again when Ruby came back. She turned her scroll back on, winced when she saw that Father had left _sixteen _messages. She'd call him first... then maybe Ozpin? Unless he already knew. Surely he would have told her if he did...

"Hey." Blake grabbed her hand. "Remember to breathe, okay?"

Right. She selected Father's contact information, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Pointed horns, red hair, one eye blue and the other... but it wouldn't be him. He was dead.

The knot in the pit of her stomach remained unconvinced.

* * *

On the second morning of his kidnapping, Whitley woke feeling like his head and nose had been stuffed with cotton. He groaned, twitched, then rolled onto his side. His hands were tied together behind his back, and he couldn't feel his fingers. Maybe there was a problem with the knots. Maybe it was just the cold.

He sneezed. There was something vaguely humiliating about getting the sniffles in the middle of an abduction.

It was hard to say where he was now, exactly. They'd blindfolded him on the way, so all he had to go on was a very long time spent listening to an airship engine, then hushed voices and a flight of stairs. He guessed from the boiler in one corner and the stacks of boxes that this was a basement. Apart from that... he wasn't even sure which continent he was on.

Movement from upstairs. He tensed, curling his knees up to his chest. After a moment he realized he'd been holding his breath, and when he tried to let it out it hitched and turned into a coughing fit. That was how the fox faunus found him—the man he'd taken to calling Not-Rusty in his head.

"That better not be contagious." He circled around Whitley and untied his hands. "Go on. Eat."

Breakfast turned out to be some kind of oatmeal. Whitley could only choke down half of it—he was hungrier than he'd ever been in his life, but it tasted like soggy cardboard.

Not-Rusty glared at him. "Don't think I'm gonna cook for you if you turn your nose up, brat."

"I'm not feeling well," Whitley mumbled.

A smirk. "I'm not surprised." The man reached out and ruffled his hair, and Whitley shivered. Only Winter had ever done that before—and only once. She'd done a lot of strange things in the weeks before she left for the military. "You'll be fine. We just have a few things we're going to ask your old man. As long as he gives us what we want, you'll be back home and eating frog legs or whatever the hell you're used to. Until then..."

Whitley forced down another bite. Not-Rusty clapped him on the shoulder. He did that a lot—Whitley thought he would prefer a captor that shouted at him instead.

"What are you asking him, exactly?"

The faunus stared at him, all the false humor suddenly replaced with something much more calculating. He must have decided that knowing wouldn't help Whitley escape. "Nothing complicated. He's gonna stop the SDC from injecting dragon eggs, and give us the ice dragon formula."

Whitley's heart sank. Would Father agree to that? He wasn't the heir yet, even if Weiss seemed determined to fix that. Calculations started running in the back of his mind. If the SDC stopped injecting, someone else would start. That was just how business worked. And with the secret to the ice dragons spread around, the company would lose its competitive edge. It might not even survive the process, depending on how badly things went. Would Father—

"Eat," Not-Rusty snapped. "I have shit to do, you know."

Whitley scooped up another bite. He was already sniffling from the cold, but all of a sudden the hot feeling behind his eyelids welled up. He turned his head to hide it, but he was sure the faunus noticed.

Eventually he managed to finish the oatmeal, and Not-Rusty retied his hands and went back upstairs. Whitley sat for a while, sniffling in the too-bright light cast by a single naked lightbulb.

He napped fitfully, woke up with a pounding headache and the dazed, scattered feeling that came with being slightly feverish. Someone was galloping down the stairs. The door flew open, slammed against the opposite wall. This time it wasn't Not-Rusty, but the man with boar's tusks. He looked angry. Whitley cringed back against the wall. Tusks picked him up and slung him over one shoulder like a sack of flour.

His new position didn't do anything to help his headache. Bile welled up, and he struggled not to be sick—he doubted Tusks would take that well. At the top of the stairs was a woman with a shock of grey-brown feathers growing at her hairline. Dahlia—Tusks had accidentally let her real name slip.

"Stop."

Tusks swore under his breath. "Dah—I mean—look, we don't really have time to—"

"Do you want him to be able to describe this place?" She held up a scrap of cloth.

Whitley hated the blindfold. His nose was still running, which made the material chafe. He could hear voices, Not-Rusty's among them, as well as several others he didn't recognize. A door opened. There was fresh air on his face for an instant, and he squirmed in Tusks' grip. Someone grabbed his wrist and squeezed. He went still.

The click of a car door, a slam. It was cold inside. Whitley whimpered when someone grabbed his shoulder.

"Shut up," snapped Not-Rusty, and fastened a seatbelt across his chest.

Whitley pretended to nod off against the car door. For what felt like more than an hour, all he could hear was his own ragged breathing. Then, "Shit. That was too close."

"Brindle, stop it."

"I thought we weren't supposed to use _names." _Definitely Tusks.

_"I _thought we were supposed to have at least a day to get the hell out of dodge," Dalia said. "Instead we've got the entire Atlesian military breathing down our necks."

"Quiet!" Not-Rusty heaved a sigh. "There was more heat than I expected, yeah. They were supposed to be distracted. But we're _done _talking about it in front of the brat. Understand?"

They went quiet after that. A long while later, Whitley mustered the courage to peel back the blindfold—just long enough to get a peek at the rearview mirror. He discovered that they weren't in a car at all. It was a massive truck, the kind used for shipping. He couldn't see inside the back, but he thought that must be where they were keeping Glacier. The landscape wasn't helpful. A dirt road, with woods on either side. Could be any kingdom.

He dropped the blindfold, hiding the motion behind his body. After that there was nothing to do but think. The Atlesian military was tracking them—that was good, wasn't it? They would catch up within a few days and collect him, and he'd be safe at home again by this time next week.

Or Not-Rusty and his accomplices would panic and kill him.

Whitley felt his breathing coming in short gasps and fought to slow it. He had to think—had to come up with a plan to get out of this. What would Father do?

Father would never be caught like this in the first place. And even if he was, the animals would have killed him right away. That wasn't helpful, and he couldn't think of anything else...

Except, maybe... what would his sisters do?

Still useless. Both had dragons of their own to protect them, while Whitley had nothing and wasn't in much condition to fight. Maybe there was something he could do to free his hands? From there he could roll down the window, put his head outside, but there wasn't anyone else on the road...

Whitley slumped back against his seat. Tears came again, but this time they were hidden behind the blindfold. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to be back at the manor, drinking a mug of tea to soothe his sore throat.

_I'm not alone,_ he told himself. Glacier was in the back of the truck, probably still sedated. The Atlas military wasn't far behind, and Father was negotiating... or they _thought _he would negotiate.

Whitley swallowed another whimper. If they had asked for money, that would have been one thing. But asking him to hand over every advantage the SDC had on the market? Father _definitely _wouldn't risk killing the company to get back a dragon when he could just inject another egg... and Whitley wasn't sure he was any different.

* * *

Sky started the most important meeting of his life sweaty, smelly, and out of breath.

The camp Hazel had brought him to was hours of hard, uphill hiking away from Beacon. By the time he got there he didn't want to do much except melt into the ground—that was, until he saw the dragon.

It was a fire dragon, solid gold from nose to tail, lounging outside a gigantic tent. As he and Hazel approached, one blood-red eye opened, regarding them suspiciously for a moment before it decided they were no threat and went back to sleep.

"That's Phoenix," Hazel told him. Sky closed his mouth, which he realized had been gaping open. It hadn't hit him until just now that these were _actual rogues._ This was a dragon that had been living outside the council's reach for years. This was a dragon that would never be culled.

There was a rustle from inside the tent, and a woman stepped out. Sky's mouth went dry—he'd dealt with the White Fang, sort of, but he'd never seen anyone with a Grimm mask like _that _before—ornate, covering her whole face... and oddly disturbing. Her boots thudded heavily on the wooden platform her tent rested on. She descended slowly, and he couldn't tell where she was looking under the mask but it felt like she was _staring _at him. He realized with an uneasy shiver that he couldn't tell which of the two pairs of eyes she was seeing out of.

"Raven," Hazel said.

A hand came up, slipping the mask off her face. Sky was struck again, this time by a feeling of recognition. But that was impossible—surely he would have remembered seeing her before.

Sky cleared his throat and stuck out a hand. "I'm Sky Lark."

She raised an eyebrow at him, pausing just long enough to make him squirm. Then she took it, shook once. "I heard about your dragon," she said.

He flinched. Her tone wasn't like the other stable hands', the ones that seemed to understand... but it was nothing like his classmates' either. She didn't pity him—that much was obvious.

"I heard about Haven. Was that... was that you?"

"I'm affiliated with the same organization."

_God. Damn. Epic._ He didn't even try to hide the huge grin that spread across his face.

"This is the end of an era," Raven said. "You're here. You must want the council gone."

He swallowed hard. "Not gone. I want them to burn."

Phoenix picked up its head and looked at him—it felt like it was looking _into _him. Dragon and rider exchanged a glance. Then Raven gave him an appraising once-over, as though she was confirming what her partner had seen. "If you join us, we can give you a hatchling that will never fear state-sanctioned slaughter."

"Yes." Sky didn't even think about it until after the word had left his mouth. Once he had... "Yes! I want... I want to make them pay." He wasn't even sure anymore who 'they' were. The council, obviously... but they were just a bunch of old bastards who'd probably never even met a dragon. Powerless, if it weren't for the soldiers that followed them. The riders who betrayed their partners, working for people who would execute them at the first inconvenience. The worthless cowards like Ozpin who let it all happen.

"Before you accept, you need to know what you're agreeing to. You've heard of the purge, I assume?"

"Yeah."

"The council feared the hybrids they created. So they killed them. Some of our... associates are working to bring them back."

Sky nodded dumbly, his head spinning.

"Raising one of them will be difficult. It may be several months before an egg is ready, and there are very few people still alive who know how to care for them. There will be a certain amount of trial and error involved."

He remembered Tornado, how he'd been so scattered, so erratic and angry. The day Sky had accidentally dropped a spoon into a shaft of sunlight, watching his little hatchling go still, his eyes shining as he pounced...

"I'll do it."

Sky hadn't been worthy of Tornado. Maybe he wasn't as bad as Cardin, but he... he hadn't been good enough.

That was before. This time, he'd make _damn _sure he was worthy.

* * *

"Blake, _go._ I'll be fine."

"But I—"

Weiss put both hands on her hips, one eyebrow raised. "You promised Brand. I'll survive for the next few hours or so."

"I can just... explain..." Blake trailed off, knowing even as she said it that there was no chance Brand would listen. She sighed. "You're _sure—"_

"Yes." Weiss gestured at the door. "Now stop acting like I'm going to shrivel up and die if there's no one on hand to _babysit _me."

"That's not—! We're worried about you, after—"

"I know. And I appreciate it, but I'm... coping. Winter said she'd call in an hour or two, if that helps."

It didn't. What if Winter called with bad news and Blake wasn't _there _to—

"Blake." Weiss gingerly rested a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you for looking out for me, but I really will be okay for a few hours. Brand needs you too. Honestly, I'd go with you if I didn't think... he probably wouldn't appreciate me being there _every _time."

"...Okay." Blake massaged her forehead, trying to rub away the headache. "Okay. But if anything happens, _please _call me."

"I will."

"Okay." Blake paused again in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder. Weiss rolled her eyes and made a shooing motion with one hand. It was... sort of encouraging to see her acting like her usual self, but at the same time...

_Ugh._

She limped carefully down the hallway. It wasn't like she could force Weiss to talk about it—better to make sure she knew the option was always open. At least, that was what Yang had said. And Brand really _did _need her right now.

Still. She tried to hurry as she hobbled into the elevator—it was cramped and smelly, possibly to discourage students from using it when they didn't need to—and struck out across the lawn. Pit met her soon after, and she awkwardly hoisted herself onto his back.

"Let's move quickly. I don't want to leave her alone too long." If Pit wondered who she was talking about, he didn't ask. He just trotted into the forest, as fast as he could without jostling her leg.

When they arrived, Blake slid carefully off his back and swung herself towards the entrance of the cave. It took a second to circle around the thicket that hid the entrance, and then—

A man, sitting cross-legged just inside the cave. Broad-shoulders, close-cropped hair, arms thick with muscle and a smattering of pale scars on his knuckles. Blake froze in her tracks. She'd thought it was safe to go alone—there had been no ambushes, no signs of ulterior motives besides Brand's well-being, but _now—_

His head turned. He blinked once, apparently just as startled as she was. Then he lifted both hands, palm-out, to show he was unarmed. Since Blake was maybe a quarter of his size and literally couldn't run to save her life, this was not entirely reassuring.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. Behind her, Pit let out a low, rumbling growl.

If this bothered the man at all, he didn't show it. "I'm Hazel," he said, making no move to stand up. "I'm here for Brand."

"You... what?"

He shrugged. "I sit with him. Keep him company."

Blake stared at him. She couldn't see any sign of faunus traits, and he wasn't wearing one of Adam's masks. "Are you... are you with the Fang?"

"Not exactly. I'm... more of a middle man."

"A human."

The man—Hazel—nodded.

Blake groped for words. This... definitely didn't _look _like an ambush, and it would be an incredibly stupid ambush considering Hazel didn't have a dragon with him as far as she could tell. He seemed to notice the look on her face, and scooted himself over a few feet. "You can sit, if you like" he offered. "Think of it as neutral ground."

"...Neutral ground."

She inched forward, just far enough that she could see into the cave. Brand was sitting up, his head tilted to one side in wary curiosity. The moment he noticed her he tensed. His tail lashed back and forth, his head drew back—ready to bite. He'd been more relaxed with this stranger than with her. That stung, but... it wasn't really about her.

Blake tried to sit down, but moved too fast and leaned on her bad leg.

"Do you want some help with that?"

"No!" She winced. "No. Thank you." Pit stuck his head out and let her hold onto his neck while she lowered herself to the ground. Pit crouched at her side, keeping his eyes trained on Hazel.

"What's his name?" Hazel asked, after a long moment.

"Pit."

More silence. Brand relaxed slowly, curling up near the spot where his chain was fixed to the cave wall. He didn't shout at Blake to go away. He just stayed there, watching their group. Blake listened to their breathing for a while—Brand and Pit's deep and slow, Hazel's quieter. Eventually she checked her scroll and found that it had been about an hour since she'd left Beacon.

"I should go," she said. He nodded. She thought that would be the end of it, but he said his goodbyes to Brand at the same time as she did and followed her out of the cave. She paused, one hand on Pit's neck, the other supporting her weight on one of the crutches. Hazel gave her a parting nod.

"...Wait."

"Yes?"

"Are you the one who sent me that note?"

"Me and someone else. We tried to help Brand ourselves, but he wouldn't listen when we told him Adam was dead."

She tensed. "Did you—"

"No." He grimaced. "I didn't know about that. And I'm sorry it happened."

"I don't understand. You obviously care about dragons, or you wouldn't have done all this for Brand."

"I do." Hazel was quiet for a moment, as if considering how much he should say. "My sister and I were riders. The council decided her dragon wasn't fit to live, and we took issue with that. I survived. They didn't."

Blake swallowed hard. "Then... how are you okay with any of this? I've _seen _what the White Fang is doing. It's sick."

For the first time, a flicker of something passed across his face—anger, maybe, or grief. "It's changed. Gotten as bloodless as we can make it. Ugly... but necessary."

"You sound like the council." The words were out before she could stop them, and for a moment she thought there might be a fight after all—his hands balled into fists. Then, slowly, they relaxed.

"I don't mean necessary for our own gain. It's for them. The world needs hybrids. It's why the council killed them in the first place... they can see our cruelty for what it is, and punish us for it. The elementals love us too damn much to stand up for themselves."

"If they understand cruelty, eventually they'll come for you and your butchers."

His face was stony. "So be it."

* * *

**Okay, so writing Hazel. It's fun, because he has that fascinating "gentle giant uncle who also happens to work for Satan" vibe. But at the same time, I want to make sure his reasoning for doing what he does makes some kind of sense, at least to him if not other characters. Here's hoping that worked out here—and I do think it's easier to reason out why he'd accept working for Cinder in the context of this story than Salem in canon, so. There's that.**


	11. New Arrivals

**Hi! I'm back with more dragons, today and on Friday!**

* * *

**11\. New Arrivals**

* * *

"Nice weather, huh?"

Neptune squinted at Sun, trying to figure out where _that _had come from. Their whole team was walking down the streets of Vale, dragons in tow, chatting about a downright _sadistic _essay prompt Oobleck had just given them. It was... maybe a little warmer than yesterday? Sunnier, definitely, but kind of windy, too.

"Uh... I guess?"

"Yes!" Sun reached up and grabbed his hoodie by the neck, pulling it off and tossing it into the air. "Freedom!"

It was still only March. There was still a small heap of snow on the sidewalk they were standing on that hadn't finished melting yet. Neptune was wearing three layers.

Underneath the sweatshirt, Sun had left his shirt unbuttoned.

_Clang._

Neptune staggered back, his hand going to his smarting nose. When he opened one eye he realized he was standing right in front of a streetlamp—the old-fashioned kind that made you double-check to see if there were any lions or ice-witches around.

"Dude, you okay?"

"Yeah!" he said quickly, swerving around the lamp and walking briskly down the street to avoid Sun's concerned look and Scarlet's raised eyebrow. "Totally fine, just uh... distracted." _Shit! _"By that!" He pointed at a random shop front, then did a double-take when he realized it was a place called Theo's Threads. In other words, a clothing store—exactly what they'd been looking for.

He slumped with relief as the others headed towards it. Then he turned and met Nymph's eyes.

"I _know," _he grumbled. "You can put away the judging face."

Once they were inside, Scarlet made a beeline for the back of the store—he'd seen _something, _but Neptune honestly had no idea what. The rest of them followed more slowly, poking around in the racks as they passed them. Sage found a gigantic plaid blanket in green and brown and held it up in front of Zircon, who sniffed it once and hummed contentedly. When they finally caught up with Scarlet, he already had three jackets thrown over one arm.

"Dude," Sun said, laughing. "It's not gonna be cold enough to wear those for long."

"You aren't exactly the best judge of temperature," Sage pointed out.

"Just because you're all wimps..."

"Isn't Vacuo a desert?" Scarlet asked. "How are you so freakishly cold-resistant?"

"Deserts get _cold _at night. Way colder than this, anyway."

Scarlet draped one of the jacket's over Sun's front, stared at it a moment, then sighed and shook his head. "Such a waste."

"Hey, if you wanna talk about waste, covering _this _up would be a—"

"Excuse me?"

They all turned, startled. A blonde woman was standing behind them, tapping one foot. She had two friends with her—both had noticed what was going on and were watching the confrontation.

"I'd like to see some of those jackets if you don't mind."

Something about the way she said, 'if you don't mind' made Neptune think she hoped very much that they _did _mind.

"Uh, sure." Sun scooted over to the other side of the aisle, pausing only to rehang the jacket Scarlet had been holding up to him with a flourish. "All yours."

"Except these," Scarlet added, indicating the ones he'd already grabbed.

"You can't just stick clothes on the rack wherever you like," the woman said tartly, grabbing the coat back. Neptune noticed that she was holding it carefully, as if to avoid touching it any more than necessary. "You'll make more work for the employees."

"That's where I found it," Scarlet said, his eyes narrowing. "So unless somebody shelved it wrong before us—"

"Daisy." One of the friends walked over, his arms folded over his chest. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, Umber. I'm just trying to keep things neat around here," the woman—Daisy, apparently—told him.

Huo snorted. Both Daisy and the friend stiffened, looking between him and Sun, their eyes getting progressively wider. "Mel," Daisy called, "Mel, get over here."

The third friend, another young woman with darker hair, wandered over. She didn't look happy to be there—she glared first at the four boys, then at Daisy. "What?"

"You should really stay on the other side of the store," Daisy told Sun, and pointed. "That's where the dragon accessories are."

"Uh..." Neptune said, sharing an incredulous look with the others. "We need clothes too."

"Well, the merchandise over here isn't as _robust, _you see."

Scarlet handed his armful of coats to Sage and stepped forward. "Look, we're just trying to shop, okay? There's a sign out front, we're allowed to bring our dragons in."

"Daisy," Mel said, with the frustrated resignation of someone who knows that arguing is futile. "Can we just—"

"That's all well and good," Daisy went on, "but they're making some of us a bit uncomfortable."

Zircon whined quietly, until Sage draped the coats over his back—along with the giant flannel blanket—and stroked his neck.

"I think you're making _them _uncomfortable," Scarlet snapped. "What's your problem?"

"Hey!" Umber jabbed a finger at him. "Back off, pal."

Mel mumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, "For fuck's sake..."

"It's all well and good if you want to shop for saddles or whatever," Daisy said. "I just think you should be more considerate of other patrons. No one wants the clothes over here getting torn or dirty or—"

She was looking right at Sun.

"Our dragons haven't touched anything, so I really don't see what's wrong." Neptune glared at her, a silent challenge. "Unless it's not the _dragons _making you uncomfortable."

"Hey." Sun touched his sleeve. "It's fine, I'm sure it's not—"

"I'm just _saying _that it would be better to keep them away from the nicer items, that's all!"

"Listen, you—"

Sun grabbed Neptune by the back of his coat. "Nep and I can just take them outside," he said, with obviously forced cheer. "We'll meet up with you guys when you're done. Oh, and Yang asked me to grab a rubber toy for Fang, so uh... see if you can find any that look like they'd survive more than a couple days, okay?"

Scarlet, who had gone pink at the ears and looked ready to set the coat Daisy was holding on _fire, _opened his mouth to argue. Sage elbowed him in the side and said, "We'll take care of it. See you in a few minutes."

Ignoring Neptune's protests, Sun dragged him gently out of the store. Huo followed, though only after a hefty bribe of treats and a parting growl that made all three irritating customers blanch. Outside, Nymph whacked her brother with her tail, and the two of them started to scuffle. Only playfully—neither of their riders felt the need to intervene.

Neptune jammed both hands into his pockets. "It wasn't about the dragons."

"Yeah. I know." Sun leaned against the wall of the store and sighed. "I noticed the look on her face when she grabbed the coat."

"We didn't have to leave. She was out of line."

"Maybe. Odds are, if things escalated the cops wouldn't side with us."

"We'd back you up!" Neptune kicked the ground, his boot scuffing against the pavement. "Plus, it's not like we'd be starting a fight. We were just shopping, if she wants to get herself tied into knots about it that's _her _problem."

"It doesn't always work like that, Nep. I don't want to risk starting something in the middle of Vale."

"I'm not saying we should start a brawl or anything. Just... you have the right to be in there as much as she does. Way more, since you're not an asshole."

Sun snorted at that. Then the small smile faded and he glanced over at Huo—who was making a show out of pretending to bite Nymph's neck while Zircon hid behind Nimbus. "I uh... can't really afford to take the chance."

"What?"

"I had a bit of an incident in town a while ago. Nothing serious, but uh... they said if something like that happened again, I'd have to muzzle him."

"Oh." Neptune glanced at Sun. He was slouching against the wall, both arms hugged around his stomach. "I'm... I'm sorry, man."

"Nah." Sun grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It's not_ your _fault."

"Yeah, but... I shouldn't have been so..." Neptune stopped. Sighed. "I know I don't always... _get _this stuff." _Not like Blake. _"And I'm sorry if I started running my mouth without knowing what I was talking about."

"What? No!" Sun waved his hands frantically. "Not what I meant! Look, it's... I'm glad you're ready to stick up for me. It's not your fault you didn't know about..." he glanced over at Huo. "Everything."

"Still."

They stood there in silence for a moment. Then Sun turned to him and said, "Hey, if you want to head back in you can. I know you were pretty excited about this place."

"I'd rather go somewhere we can _all _shop in peace," Neptune grumbled. "I don't want to spend my money anywhere they'd kick you out."

"Well, it's not the store's fault," Sun pointed out. "It didn't look like those three worked there."

"I'm still not coming back here."

"Aw, don't be like that. You liked it so much you walked into a pole, don't let one bad coincidence ruin that!"

Neptune flushed. "I thought the name was clever, that's all. And anyway, I don't... I don't want to be anywhere you have to deal with people like that."

"Oh. Uh..." Sun rubbed the back of his head, looking a little sheepish.

"I'm serious. I want you to enjoy the places we go. Stuff we do. Feel... comfortable. And everything." He coughed into his hand. "It's important to me."

He paused, feeling like he was on the brink of saying something either really profound or _really _stupid, and caught a glimpse of Nymph. She was holding Huo away from her with one paw and had craned her neck to stare at them, her ears pricked.

Neptune tugged at the collar of his jacket in a vain attempt to hide his face and shut up. A moment later he was startled by a light punch to his shoulder, and turned to see Sun smiling at him—a real one, this time.

"Thanks, man. It means a lot."

* * *

"—and then we swooped down like the wrath of the gods, hitting five targets _in a row!"_

"Tuh... two," Freya corrected, stumbling a little over the word.

"Two is still very impressive," Pyrrha said, smiling.

"And we were moving so fast they all caught _fire!"_

"That sounds very energetic." Ren gave Freya a scratch under the chin. She purred, craning her neck to give him better access.

"Yeah!" Nora bounced in place, beaming at Freya. "It makes her kinda tired, but she's an awesome flier. Yesterday she almost took off without the ramp! Then we sorta crashed, but crashing is _awesome!"_

Freya disagreed—they'd only been about fifteen feet in the air, but hitting the ground had hurt. It had_ almost_ been worth it to hear Nora giggling afterwards... but she'd been worried about accidentally squishing her, which she'd prefer to avoid. It was nicer when they flew normally, and she could spend most of the class gliding and occasionally riding hot air currents to rise higher.

"I can't _wait _until we can do flying classes in teams!" Nora stopped, her face falling slightly as she looked at Jaune. "I mean..."

He smiled and patted Twiggy on the head. "It's okay. I'm excited to fly with you guys too, even if it might be a little while."

"Yeah!" Nora grinned back. "And when we do, we should throw a giant party. Ren can cook!"

Ren frowned. "If I'm going to be cooking for all twelve of us, I'm going to need an assistant."

Jaune raised his hand. "I can do that!"

"You cook?" Pyrrha asked, her eyes lighting up.

"Well, yeah. When there's eight kids, someone's gotta help in the kitchen or nobody eats."

"I've always wanted to learn."

Nora turned a little pink. "Me too, but _some _people won't let me use the stove on my own. _Ren."_

He shrugged. "The gas explosions have been forgiven, but not forgotten."

"That was one time!"

Freya met Ren's eyes.

"Four," they said in unison.

* * *

Dead silence.

Ruby eked out another sentence. Crossed out half of it. Drew a penguin in the margins, because she was gonna have to rewrite this thing by the end anyway. And maybe _again_ after that, because she'd crossed out so much she wasn't sure the end result would be a full six pages. She sighed. Wrote another word. Crossed it out.

On the other side of the room, Weiss tapped her pen against her thumb three times before she noticed what she was doing and stopped. Blake flipped over the page she was writing on. Yang banged her head gently against the wall.

Oobleck could be really _evil _when he wanted to.

More tapping from Weiss. Now that Ruby was paying attention, she realized her teammate was only writing in little spurts, with long periods of silence in between. It looked like she was still on her first page.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Weiss' hand closed around the pen and squeezed. There was a little _pop, _and ink bled onto her desk. "Oh, for the love of—"

Ruby dove for the roll of paper towels on Yang's desk and started mopping up the mess. Most of the essay was salvageable, though there was a big spot in the middle that had been stained dark blue.

There was a moment of silence. She exchanged a worried look with Yang and Blake over Weiss' head.

"Okay!" Ruby tried to keep her voice upbeat. "How about we take a break? 'Cause I think my brain is about to leak out of my ears."

Weiss' hand twitched. There were little blue lines all over it now, where ink had soaked into tiny creases in her skin. "This essay is due in less than a week."

"Yeah, but we can work on it some more after," Ruby said. "Like... we worked a bunch. Now we break. Then we work more, get dinner... work even _more..."_ Ugh. She had definitely not counted on becoming a dragon rider involving this much writing.

"I think it's a good idea," Yang added. Blake nodded, even though Ruby was pretty sure she was only like a paragraph or two away from being done.

Weiss narrowed her eyes at them. "Are you _handling _me right now?"

"No!" Ruby waved her hands frantically. "It's just... um..."

"You're tense," Yang said. "And you should probably take a break before you kill another innocent pen."

"Maybe I've been a little stressed lately, but I'm still more than capable of handling the workload!"

"We know." Blake pushed herself to her feet, leaning on her chair to take the weight off her leg. "But... maybe it would help if you took a minute to relax? Talk about what's bothering you?"

"Why?" Weiss snapped. "It's not as if I can _do _anything."

Ruby winced. "Well... you could talk about your brother. If you think that would help?"

"There's not much to say. We didn't get along well." She sat down on her bed, rubbing at her hand like she was trying to scrub off the ink.

Blake took a seat next to her, wincing as she did so. "He's younger than you, right?"

Weiss nodded. "He's a little younger than Ruby. I don't... he never learned self-defense or anything like that. Winter taught me a little, but he always thought it was a waste of time."

"Your dad can get him back though, right?" Ruby asked. "I mean... they'll ask for money, and stuff?"

"Probably. In a week we might all be sitting here worrying about what the White Fang could do with a billion lien." Blake cringed.

"Let's deal with that when it comes up, shall we?" Yang suggested, plopping down on Weiss' other side. Ruby took that as her cue to sit down too, squished between her sister and the wall.

"Right."

"Hey..." Yang bumped Weiss gently with her shoulder. "It's okay if this gets to you. I mean, if it was me I'd probably be a wreck right about now, so..."

"It's different," Weiss said softly. "Like I said, we weren't close. I just—I keep thinking that he doesn't know how to fight back, which is _idiotic, _that's the _worst _thing he could do in that situation but—" She stopped, took one deep, shaky breath after another while Yang rubbed her back and Blake held her hand. Finally her shoulders slumped.

"Fine. We can take a break. I doubt I'll be able to focus for a while."

"How about a walk outside?" Ruby suggested. "We've been cooped up in here way too long, and it's actually kind of warm out for a change. Plus we can visit our dragons!"

Weiss managed a small smile. "Alright."

Ruby hopped to her feet and wrapped her friend in a tight hug before they left. Then they headed down the stairs and out across campus, making their way towards the barns.

At least, that was the idea. Before they were even halfway there, Blake stopped dead. Her bow was twitching. "What's wrong?" Weiss asked, glancing around. "Is there someone—"

"I think I hear an airship."

A moment later, Yang pointed off to their left. The ship was descending, heading right for Beacon's airfield.

"So..." Ruby glanced at the others. "Should we go see what that's about?"

It landed when they were only a few hundred yards away, and from that distance Ruby noticed more details than she'd been able to make out before. For one thing, the design was Mistralian. For another, it was _huge._ The last time she'd seen an airship that size had been when they were on their way to the Festival_..._

_Oh._

Ruby broke into a sprint. She didn't pay much attention to whether or not the others were following, because right then a hatch opened on the side and people and dragons started pouring out. She searched among them, eyes bouncing from head to head until—a flash of green.

Sheer surprise froze her in place long enough for her team to catch up. By then Emerald had seen her, too, and was waving from behind Jade. Mercury was with her, along with maybe a dozen other students of various ages, and their dragons. Many of them had duffle bags and suitcases.

"What are you doing here?" she burst out, as soon as they were close enough. _Wait. _"I mean, it's awesome! That you're here—except it's also super weird, Ozpin didn't say anything about—" Ruby was glad when Yang finally bopped her on the head and the torrent of words stopped. "Um. Hi?"

"He probably didn't know until we were practically on our way," Mercury said, answering her second _super rude _question—why did that have to be the first thing that came out her mouth?! "They only decided where to put us this morning."

"And as for why we're here..." Emerald grinned. "We requested Beacon."

"Yeah." Mercury's smile was strange, like he was laughing at some hidden joke. "Figured it was the best place to keep doing what we were doing."

"That's... nice," Weiss said, though it sounded a little strained.

"Are you guys okay?" asked Yang. "We saw on the news..."

Emerald patted Jade's neck. "It was... intense, but we made it out okay. Nobody got hurt."

"Except that teacher. Rivers, right?"

"Eh." Mercury's grin widened. "Trust me—it could have been a _lot _worse." Emerald shot him a withering look.

"So... um..." Ruby fidgeted with the hem of her cape. "Maybe we can show you around the campus? While you're waiting for Ozpin to announce you and everything."

"We _do _still have an essay," Weiss pointed out.

Yang glanced from Ruby, to Emerald, then back again. "Yeah, uh... maybe you can show them around without us, and we'll meet up for dinner after?"

Ruby did a double take. "What?"

"That sounds great," Emerald said.

_What?!_ She opened her mouth to say something, closed it, opened it again—but by then her _traitor _sister was already herding the rest of their team back towards the dorms.

Slowly, she turned to face Emerald and Mercury. "Um... right. Tour!"

Emerald glanced at Mercury, who was smirking, and said, "How about we start with the barns? I'm sure Jade would like to see Storm again."

Ruby barely kept herself from slumping with relief. "Yeah! They're over here!" She turned and led the way, bouncing up and down with nervous excitement.

Behind her back, Jade shot Emerald a questioning glance. Her rider shook her head and mouthed, _'Later.'_


	12. Sparks and Tinder

**Hello again! Today I come bearing dragons, shadow puppets, and our favorite scheming (and bickering) crime siblings.**

* * *

**12\. Sparks and Tinder**

* * *

"Okay... a little to the left. Little more..."

Fang stuck his head too far forward, and Yang winced and pulled her hands away from the fire in his mouth. Then, much more carefully, she stuck them out, twining her fingers together...

"See? Butterfly!" She flapped her hands, and the shadow on the ground fluttered. "Fox..." A twist, and the shadow had an eye and pointed ear. "Uh... Llama?" She stuck more of her arm in front of his mouth, and the shadow grew a long neck and bigger ears.

Awed, Fang tried to lean closer. Yang hissed and pulled away, and he closed his mouth with a _snap._ The fire he'd built up in his throat went out and he gave his rider's fingers an apologetic lick.

"Cool, right?"

"Gud," he agreed. He wanted to do it again, but he still wasn't very good at keeping the fire going.

It was evening, just dark enough for Yang to make the pretty shadows but not so dark that they couldn't see where they were going. His rider had come from dinner, and had told him that two of the dragons and riders from the Vytal Festival would be staying at Beacon from now on. Ozpin had announced it during the meal. Fang didn't see why it mattered—some of the dragons he'd met during the festival had been impressive, but he barely even remembered these two.

Still. Yang seemed to like them, so he supposed he'd give them a chance.

A rumble started deep in his chest as he built up another flame. He didn't know what most of the creatures Yang showed him were—he was pretty sure she'd made up the star-nosed mole and probably a lot of the others—but the shadows were fun to look at. But the moment he started to feel his throat heating up, there was a rustling from nearby. Two figures emerged from the bushes.

"Weiss?" Yang called out, and both she and Specter froze. "What are you—"

"I'm not here," she whispered, and ran past them. Specter sprinted after her, crouching as if he was trying to keep a low profile. His pale scales stood out starkly against the darkening field.

"Okay?" Yang glanced at Fang. He mimicked something he'd seen the riders doing, and jerked both his shoulders. She muffled a laugh in one hand.

A moment later another dragon and rider walked around the same clump of bushes. Fang recognized the muddy-looking water dragon Rudder, and sighed. He'd forgotten he was warming up his powers, and accidentally blew out a ring of smoke. Yang stared at it for a moment, then cracked up.

"I don't know how to tell you this," Mercury said wryly, "but I think your dragon's been smoking."

Fang snorted angrily, whacking Yang's leg with his tail. It took a while for her to stop laughing. Eventually she sobered up enough to ask, "What are you doing out here, anyway?"

He shrugged. "Wanted to take a walk with Rudder. Thought I saw someone I knew, but I guess not."

The two humans started talking about the Vytal Festival. Bored, Fang turned to Rudder and greeted him with a wary sniff. The water dragon sniffed back, staring at him with milky white eyes.

"Hello," Fang said.

Rudder blinked at him.

"Do you... like Beacon so far?"

"Yes."

...

"Are you staying in the water stables with Specter?"

"Yes."

...

Fang's tail twitched in agitation. "Are they... nice?"

Rudder nodded.

There was a long silence until, frustrated, Fang asked, "You were at Haven, right?"

At that, the water dragon curled his tail around himself and said, "Yes. Stayed with Jade. Others left."

"Why not go?"

Rudder glanced around, as if checking for other listeners. Then, "Thought message should spread."

At that, Fang sat up straight and stared. He'd been thinking these dragons and their riders had run away from Haven—he'd never thought they _planned _this. "What message?" he asked, suddenly much more interested. If he'd known the newcomers would be like _this..._

"Simple." Rudder's tail thumped against the ground. "Grimm. Council. Not so different. Both kill us."

Fang growled. "Yeah, we know that. They killed Tornado. But it's not the same, we can't just fight them like they were Grimm."

"Why?"

He did a double take. "Well, then they'd find out about—" he stopped himself. "They'd find out we wanted to hurt them and they'd cull us." His tail lashed back and forth. "They'd lock us all up and make our riders go away."

"Scared."

"I'm not _scared," _Fang snarled. "There's no point fighting them when they're stronger than all of us combined."

"Not strong." Beside them, the conversation between Yang and Mercury started to peter out. Rudder stared at Fang, _into _him, with those blank eyes. "No dragons. Just humans."

Fang tensed. "They have riders, and they run everything. They could hurt our riders, not just us."

"Yes," Rudder agreed. "Scared. Everyone scared... or no power."

"I'm not—" But Mercury was already walking away, and Rudder followed him without another word. Fang hissed, frustrated, but stopped when Yang shot him a concerned look.

"You really don't like him, do you?"

Fang grumbled and said, "Rudd... Kay."

"He's... okay?"

He nodded. Yang shot him a skeptical look, then shrugged and turned around. "Okay," she said quietly, "Coast is clear."

Behind them, there was a squat topiary in the shape of a dragon. Specter's tail was poking out from behind one of its paws, and the moment Yang spoke he collapsed onto his stomach. He must have been standing on his tiptoes, trying to match the shape of the bush.

Fang started laughing. Specter hissed and flared his wings, then slunk out from behind the bush and sat on his haunches, his tail flicking with irritation. Weiss followed, looking everywhere but at Yang, who stood with her arms folded and an amused smirk on her face.

"So. What was that about?"

Weiss turned slightly pink. "Nothing! I just... didn't feel like talking to him."

"Because...?"

"I may have flirted with him a few times at the Vytal Festival."

Yang snorted, then clapped a hand over her mouth to smother it. "S-sorry, sorry! It's just... okay, look... do you like him?"

"Well... he's funny. And looks... nice?"

Yang raised an eyebrow. Weiss' shoulders slumped in defeat. "I thought I'd never see him again and now he lives here. Happy?"

"Ouch. Okay, that's pretty awkward, but..."

"You _think?"_

Yang rolled her eyes. "Look, just say something if you aren't interested. He doesn't seem like the type to refuse to take a hint. And if it turns out he is, I can just feed him to Fang."

Fang barked agreement and showed off his teeth. Joking aside, though, he really wouldn't want to eat Mercury. He smelled too much like metal.

* * *

The next morning dawned sunny and warm, and Storm spent it wrestling playfully with Jade while their riders walked together.

She had a hard time remembering now what the trees had looked like with all their leaves on, before they had changed color and fallen away, and eyed their brightly colored buds excitedly. Jade talked about Mistral, where there had been a whole street lined with cherry trees. They were supposed to be beautiful when they bloomed in spring, but she hadn't gotten the chance to see them before Haven closed.

When she wasn't watching the trees or pouncing on Jade's tail, Storm watched her rider. Ruby was acting strange. There was a lot of flailing and stammering, which Storm sometimes had to cut off by gently nudging Ruby with her snout. It happened even more often when she made Emerald laugh.

"Don't worry about it too much," Jade said, when Storm asked her. "They're getting along, right?"

They met up with the rest of their team in the afternoon, while Jade and Emerald had to go with Nautilus and Professor Goodwitch to talk about what they'd been learning at Haven. Storm greeted them enthusiastically, still buzzing with the energy of the season—and maybe Ruby's excitement had rubbed off on her a little. Specter whistled back, bouncing on his toes and then catching her tail in his paws.

Fang just snorted grumpily. Storm crouched low, wiggled back and forth, and pounced. He twitched his tail out of the way, then whacked her head with it. "Hey!"

Pit pinned Fang down with one paw. "What's with you today?"

"Let me up!"

"Fine." He stepped back, but kept staring at Fang. "Now spill."

"I've just been thinking, that's all." Fang kneaded the ground with his claws. "People keep telling us not to worry. They say we can help with the council when we're older. But _they're _older and they obviously can't protect us. And why's the council in charge anyway? They're just a bunch of squishy humans, none of them are _strong."_

"They're not strong," Pit said. "But they have people who work for them that are strong."

"So?" Fang blew out a puff of smoke. "The only reason there are people working for them is that people like Ozpin are too _scared _to tell them no."

Storm whined in distress. "Ozpin is trying to protect us."

"Yeah, and he's doing such a great job."

"He protected Pit," Specter said, curling his tail around his legs and hunching his shoulders. "And Twiggy, and Guang and—"

"He's _trying," _Pit agreed, "but he can't always do it. He didn't protect Blake."

"Forget about Ozpin!" Fang roared, exasperated. "My point is that he keeps saying how we can't fight the council, they're too big and we're not old enough. But _he's _old, and Ragnar's old, and all the teachers and their dragons have been grown up for _years _and they haven't done anything! Are we supposed to wait until they find out about everyone and start killing us?"

"We won't wait," Pit said firmly. "If that happens, our riders will protect us."

"So why are we waiting _now?" _Fang's tail lashed behind him. "Would anyone _really _miss these jerks if we stopped them?"

"What do you mean _stopped," _Storm asked nervously.

"Stopped. Like we're supposed to do with monsters."

"They're not Grimm," Specter hissed, indignant. "Fang—"

"Well _yeah, _they look different." Fang arched his neck and made a show out of examining his claws. "I'm just saying... they don't _act _that different from where I'm sitting."

"We can't just _kill _people, Fang!" Storm insisted, flaring her wings. "They're _different."_

"I wasn't saying that!" Fang hunched his shoulders. "I just want them to stop. And nobody seems to care if _they _kill _us."_

"That's not true. A lot of people care!"

"Yeah." He hissed, smoke curling between his teeth. "And how many of them are actually _changing _things?"

No one had an answer to that.

* * *

Ao Guang barked and ran an excited circle around Ren and Nora, yelping when he tripped over Freya and sprawled face-first in the dirt. Nora giggled and jumped on him while he was down, wrestling playfully, while Ren stood nearby with a hand over his face that didn't quite hide his smile.

He squirmed, managed to find his feet with Nora still hanging off his neck, and prodded Freya again to see if he could get her to get up and play. She blinked at him, then licked his snout and put her head down.

That was okay. He chased Nora in circles while Ren lay down with Freya, occasionally pouncing on his partner and his sister long enough to sniff them and get Ren to scratch under his chin. Even better, soon Storm and the rest of the RWBY dragons walked by. He barked at her, hopping from one foot to another, until she lunged and pinned his tail under her paws.

"We're going to grab lunch," Yang called out. "You guys want to come?"

"Sure!" Jaune hopped to his feet, giving Twiggy a last scratch behind her ears. "What about SSSN?"

"Already there." Blake held up her scroll. "I just got a text from Sun."

It was a little disappointing when Ren and Nora left, but Guang cheered up when he realized that now he could play with Storm instead. They had to be careful with the humans and faunus—they were so small now that it would be easy to hurt them by mistake.

Before long, though, he noticed Storm was distracted. Her head-fins kept drooping, and when she wasn't pulling her tail out of his reach it flopped dejectedly in the dirt. Guang paused, cocking his head to one side. "What's wrong?"

Several feet away, Fang snorted.

"Well..." Storm glanced at Pit and Specter.

"We've been talking about everything that's going on," explained Pit. "The council, mostly."

"And whether or not we should ignore the adults and just _fight _them already," Fang added.

Twiggy curled her tail around her feet. "I don't know," she said. "Don't they have a _lot _of dragons? Ones that are way older and bigger than us?"

Pit nodded. "That's what I said, but at the same time... the only reason they have power is that everyone is scared of them, right?"

"Of course," Specter agreed. "No rider would work for those murderers if they could help it."

"So if everyone stopped doing what the council told them, they wouldn't be able to hurt anyone anymore."

Freya cracked an eye open. "Wait. If that's true, then why did all those riders start following them in the first place?"

"Who cares?" Fang asked, thumping his tail against the ground. "The way I see it, they're like the Grimm. They want to kill us, so we need to fight them."

_"Fang," _Specter groaned.

"Don't look at me like that! They're Grimm we're not supposed to kill, _happy?"_

"They're not Grimm, it's different!"

"How?!"

"Grimm just attack us," Twiggy said. "But the council can make the professors let them do whatever they want."

"That sounds like a problem with our _professors."_

"They're trying!" Storm said, indignant. "Ozpin's protecting almost all of us from the council right now!"

"Yeah, but he's still afraid of them! Everyone's afraid of them, so they have power, so they can cull dragons like Tornado. If we all just turned around and attacked them at the same time, they couldn't do anything!"

"I'd rather take a risk and fight them than hope they don't find out about any of us," Titan said. "And if they _did _find out..." He growled. "They're not like Grimm because they won't hurt us if they think we're healthy and working for them. The second they _don't _think that... they'd be pretty much the same, except harder to fight."

"It's still different!" Storm insisted.

"You keep saying that," said Fang, "but—"

"They're people! I can't believe you want to attack _people!"_

"I don't _want _to!" he roared. "I want to learn to fly and fight monsters, but look around! At least _half _of us would get culled if the council knew about us!"

Guang whined and put a paw over his useless gills. Storm glanced at him, then sighed, her headfins going flat against her neck. "Let's stop talking about this," she suggested. "We're going to have flying lessons in a few minutes."

Talk finally turned to their new lessons, though Guang didn't really feel like participating. He sat, feeling dejected, until Storm bounded over and pinned his tail under one paw. He looked up at her and let out a low purr of thanks.

He was glad that conversation was finally over.

* * *

"Huo!"

Zircon whined quietly at the volume of Nymph's roar. Nimbus padded over and nuzzled at his side, wishing they were back at their flying lessons. They'd ended a few minutes ago, and he'd only mentioned the conversation he'd had with Freya and Storm _once, _but...

"Come on, Fang's totally right! They're _murderers, _why do they get away with it just because they walk on two legs and speak the same stupid language as our partners?"

"Huo, we can't just _kill _people."

Another whimper from Zircon. Nimbus couldn't see him very well at the moment, everything had gone blurry and confused, but he managed to drape a wing over his back.

"Well yeah, but it's like what happened with Pit, right?" Zircon shivered under Nimbus' wing. "We're protecting each other and our riders, just because they don't get their hands dirty doesn't mean it's different."

"It _is _different, because we're still in our right minds. We can _choose _to do the right thing."

"The right thing is letting them do whatever they—"

Nymph hissed. "No! But it's not going around setting them on fire, either."

"Better than sitting around," Huo grumbled.

"If you attack them, they'll hurt you! And then they'll look into everyone else at Beacon, _especially _our sibling group!"

Nimbus blinked a few times, wincing when his misbehaving eye drifted even farther out of line.

"So we just do nothing?!"

"Of course not!" Nymph huffed, her tail twitching in agitation. "I'm saying that diving into a head-on fight isn't a good idea. We need to trust our riders, they understand more about how this stuff works than we do."

"Yeah, because only people have systems this dumb and complicated."

Nymph arched her neck primly. "Exactly."

Huo sighed and dropped onto his hindquarters. "So we should trust our riders to figure it out."

"Yes."

He snorted. There was no smoke—he was still angry that Fang had started using his powers first, so Nimbus figured he'd manage to make something catch fire before very long. "I'd feel better about that if we could ask them what their plan is."

"Well," Nymph said smugly, "to do that you'd need to speak so that they understand."

Huo growled. "You set me up for that, didn't you?"

"It's a useful skill. It was bound to come up eventually."

_"Fine._ I'll try to make their stupid noises," Huo said. Then, out loud, "Fuck."

Sun, who had been in the middle of a conversation with his teammates, jumped and turned around. "Okay," he said, narrowing his eyes at Huo. "Now you're just messing with me."

* * *

Emerald crossed the length of their dorm room and spun on her heel. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and—

"Will you stop that?" Mercury drawled. "You're making me dizzy." She'd been strung tighter than a violin since they'd gotten to Beacon. He still hadn't decided if it was more funny or annoying.

"Are you sure it'll spread?"

He rolled his eyes. "Doing it like this was your idea in the first place. And yeah, I'm pretty sure. Look." Mercury gestured at the window. Outside, team RWBY's dragons could be seen huddled up together, all of them tensed, their tails twitching.

Emerald pinched the bridge of her nose. "Right. It worked."

"Yeah..." He squinted at her. She looked even less relaxed than a minute ago, which he hadn't thought was possible. "Chill. This'll be way easier than last time."

"I know that."

"Do you? You look like you just realized you're colorblind halfway through defusing a bomb."

Emerald glared at him. "Last time didn't exactly go off without a hitch."

"It worked out." Mercury shrugged and leaned back against the wall. "Hell, the only thing we missed out on was Rivers, and he's doesn't even have a dragon. He's useless."

"Well, yeah..."

"Plus, the plan went off the rails at Haven because we needed to turn one specific person. This time, it's all about volume. And there's even more dragons here with defects than at Haven. We could probably hit fifty-fifty without even trying."

"That doesn't mean there aren't people who are important," Emerald snapped. Then she winced. "Like... like the teachers."

Mercury raised an eyebrow. "Uh-_huh."_

"Shut up."

"No... I think I get it now." He smirked as Emerald turned to face the window and muttered darkly under her breath. "You actually _like_ her, don't you?"

"Fuck you, Mercury."

"Aw, that's so sweet..."

She shot him a murderous look. He rolled his eyes and put both hands up. "Look, whatever. Maybe they've grown on me a bit too, but it doesn't matter. We're not hurting them. We're not even _lying."_

Emerald sat down heavily on her bed. "I guess not."

"We're not. We're probably the first people they've ever heard tell this shit like it is, so stop looking so damn guilty, alright?" Mercury glanced out the window again, but the dragons had vanished.

"We're not lying," he repeated. "It's just time for them to grow up."


	13. They Can't Fire Me if I Quit First

**Hi there! This time I come bearing dragons, silly card games, and eggs!**

* * *

**13\. They Can't Fire Me if I Quit First**

* * *

Justice had never smelled so many faunus in one place before—it was like the wind itself was welcoming him home. His tail couldn't stop twitching with excitement. _These _were the people he was supposed to help. These were the ones like Ilia, the ones who were fighting for freedom.

Another smell. Justice reared, his nostrils flaring. Human.

The source of the scent approached alongside a young woman with tiger ears. Justice hissed, letting his hot breath ruffle the human's dark hair. He didn't flinch—it looked like he was suppressing a smile.

"You're Ilia, then?"

Ilia folded her arms. "And you're Hazel." Then she turned, ignoring him. "Sienna. What do you need me to do?"

The woman named Sienna glanced at the human. "Go ahead to the cave. We have matters to discuss beforehand." He nodded and walked away.

"Discuss?" asked Ilia. "What—"

"Follow me. I'd like you to take a look at the eggs. I know you weren't involved in much of the incubation or injections at Haven, but you might notice something we missed."

"I... okay." Ilia glanced at Justice. He cocked his head, unsure of why she was looking at him. "Lead the way."

They passed into a small tent, connected to a much larger one with a canvas curtain. Justice sniffed at it curiously—there was a chemical tang, and under it...

"No." Ilia pulled his head away. "Pay attention, Justice."

He snapped at her, annoyed. But he didn't try to push into the other room, because he was distracted by the rows and rows of incubators. All of them were humming softly, and he suspected they might be where the chemical smell was coming from. He sniffed one, and Ilia touched the back of his head gently.

"Careful," she murmured. Her eyes were wide, bouncing all around the room like she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. "There are so many..."

Sienna nodded. She was staring at one egg in particular, a faraway look in her eyes. A technician wandered in from the larger tent, and Justice craned his neck to peek past him—but the curtain closed too quickly. The man was carrying a needle, a package of what looked like bits of paper, and a glass tube that was glowing bright orange.

"Is that...?" Ilia breathed.

"A hybrid."

The man tapped the needle against the egg. Justice stared, awe-struck. Was this what had happened to his egg before he hatched? He gave an involuntary shudder as he watched the needle go in, and only relaxed when the technician patched up the hole with some of the paper he'd brought in. It was clear, and he could still see the small dimple that had been left in the shell.

Sienna tore her eyes away. "Wind and Fire. We're experimenting with lower concentrations of Dust—we'll see where that takes us."

Ilia nodded.

"Any insight you can offer us?"

She shook her head. "No. I didn't see the injection. I might be able to help at a hatching, but otherwise..."

"Excellent." Sienna started walking again, out of the tent this time. "I have one more thing to show you."

Justice smelled him before he saw him. A thrill of excitement went up his spine—it was a scent that reminded him of Rudder and Jade in almost equal measure, and that must mean...

A small head poked up out of a pen. Grey eyes blinked at him, with teal rings flashing around his pupils. Justice touched his nose to the smaller dragon, marveling at his bizarre shape.

"We actually...?"

"This is Harbinger, our first successful hybrid," Sienna said. "We've had some difficulty replicating the feat." She pursed her lips. "The... individuals we've partnered with want us to concentrate on finding new hybrids, instead of duplicating the same formula."

Ilia frowned. "Why?"

"We don't know. And for the moment, we don't ask."

"Right." Ilia bent down and scratched the hybrid behind his ears. "Hello, there."

Harbinger blinked at her, then turned his stare on Justice. "Hello," he said shyly. "You're like Brand."

Justice had never met Brand. He'd only heard the name a few times from Ilia, but he decided he might as well humor the young dragon. "We're both fire dragons."

"Is he bonded with you?" Ilia asked, but Sienna shook her head.

"Fennec takes care of his basic needs. Corsac trains him."

"Right."

Sienna walked away, gesturing at them to follow. Justice snorted in annoyance. He spared a last glance for the new dragon, who was still staring at him.

"I don't understand," Ilia admitted, as they moved past the last of the tents and into the woods. "Why the tour?"

"In a moment." Sienna stopped and turned to face them, giving Ilia a calculating look. "There's one more matter I'd like to discuss before we get to that."

"And that is...?"

"You were close with Blake, weren't you?"

Ilia stiffened, and Justice let out a low growl. Who did this Sienna think she was? But the name, _Blake, _was one he recognized. It made his rider hurt like this before, too.

"I was," Ilia said softly. Then, colder, "Why? Did something happen?"

"Has she contacted you since you left for Haven?"

Ilia scowled. "No."

Sienna stared at her for a moment, searching. Then she nodded. "Sorry. I had to ask."

_"Why?"_

The woman's shoulders slumped slightly. "There's been an... incident. I'm sorry, but Adam's dead."

Justice hissed. He'd heard of this man. Ilia didn't like him, but he was on the right side. Ilia, her skin now the color of a bruise, asked the question that he wanted answered—"Who?"

"That's... complicated."

"Complicated?!" Ilia went electric yellow. "How is it complicated?"

"We're not sure which dragon it was."

"Which..." Yellow turned to green, and Ilia put a hand over her mouth. "What happened. What...?" Then, in a tone of dawning horror, "And why did you ask me about Blake?"

"He went to Beacon. As far as we can tell, he tried to kill her near the earth stables, and the dragons... took issue with that."

The color slowly leeched out of Ilia's skin until she was ashen grey. She groped at the air, then found Justice's shoulder and leaned against it. "Gods..."

"It's a mess." Sienna's lip curled. "He couldn't have picked a worse way to go about it. The only person who could claim to have been his second in command was responsible for his death, and that leaves the rest of us to pick up the pieces. Part of the reason I showed you around is that you have more influence around here than most, and I trust you to do what's right for our people."

"You aren't seriously making _me _the leader."

"No. Ironically, I think the best word for what we have right now would be a council. The Lieutenant, the Albains, and I have been running things the best we can. Now that includes you."

Ilia heaved a sigh. "Any other bombs you want to drop?"

"Yes, actually. The cave Hazel went to? Brand is chained up in there."

His rider swore so violently that Justice reared his head back. "How long has he been there?!"

"Almost two weeks."

"Adam had the key?"

"Yes. And he's... temperamental. I'd like you to talk to him, tonight if possible. We sent a message to Blake, and he seems to have calmed down since she's started seeing him, but considering her loyalties that obviously isn't ideal."

"She—right. Of course."

Sienna's eyes narrowed slightly, but she all she said was, "I'll give you directions, then."

Justice was flagging by the time they reached the place Sienna had described. He'd been walking or flying for most of the past several days, and he knew he'd have to slog all the way back to camp before he could finally sleep... but all that fell away the moment he saw the cave's entrance. A thrill of excitement sent him charging forward, stopping only to wait for Ilia to enter first.

The human greeted them. He was sitting just inside, cross-legged. And there, about twenty feet away from him, was Brand.

He didn't know what he'd expected. He knew Brand had just lost his rider. He knew he'd been chained here for days, unable to hunt. There were bloodstains on the floor, and he could guess by their smell that someone from the White Fang had been bringing the dragon deer... but it was obvious that his health was suffering. He was thin and drawn, his scales dull and his eyes sunken. They stared out of their sockets in an eerie, half-empty sort of way, and every exhale was laced with smoke.

Justice paused just inside the cave, staring.

"She told you, then?" The human glanced at Ilia, who nodded. He hardly had to look up to talk to her, even with him sitting and her standing.

Justice hissed at him, then cut off abruptly when he heard a warning rumble from further in the cave. Brand stirred, chain links clinking, his eyes narrowing. Then they went wide. "Lah?"

Ilia swallowed. "Hello, Brand."

"Lah!" He jerked forward until the chain stopped him. Justice growled, but the gigantic fire dragon only pressed his forehead into her palm. Near the entrance, the human watched with a small smile on his face. A smile Justice wanted to scare off.

Ilia scratched Brand under the chin. He gazed at her a moment, his eyes half-lidded. Then he squeezed them shut and said, "Ad?"

"I know." She stroked his forehead. "I know, Brand. I'm sorry."

He whined, low and pitiful, and retreated away from her and into the corner of the cave. That was the last Justice saw of him before he curled up into a ball and hid beneath his wings.

Ilia backed away until she was standing next to the human. "He's..."

"Better. He didn't threaten to bite you."

"So... Blake was here."

"Mm." He rolled his shoulders and adjusted his seat. "I don't know what the story is there, but I can tell you one thing—this place is neutral ground. You got that? Nobody fights."

"Is that an order?" Ilia asked, turning the same shade of orange as Brand's scales.

"No." The human nodded at the scaly lump in the back of the cave. "It's for his sake. If you can't get along, figure out some way to miss each other when you visit him."

"...Right." Ilia glanced back into the cave, her hand tightening into a fist. "I'll keep that in mind."

* * *

"Traitor!"

Ruby jabbed an accusing finger at Emerald. Next to her, Mercury snickered into his hand.

Emerald just shrugged. "All's fair in love and war. Plus your sister set half my kingdom on fire—"

"I can't be held responsible for what Yang sets on fire!"

"—and I need a bigger army if I'm going to fight back. So. Gimme."

Ruby groaned and rested her head against the table. She didn't pick it up when she reached out and handed Emerald three offensive cards from her hand.

"Ooh, Huntsmen!"

"Ouch." Yang winced. "That's rough."

"Ugh." Ruby sat back in her chair, glaring at her now much diminished armed forces. She'd been about to use that card to take the fort Mercury was using to launch attacks on her.

"I still think this game is dumb," Mercury said, poking at his deck. "I mean, what would've stopped her from telling you she only had—" he stretched back in his seat, ignoring Emerald's angry curse, "—Atlesian androids? Why the hell would Vale have Atlesian androids?"

Emerald smacked him upside the head with her cards. "Maybe you think the game's dumb because you have to resort to cheating to win," she said loftily.

He started belly laughing. "Oh, yeah, sure—I'm just... just not _honorable _enough for—_ow! _How many cards did you _take, _it feels like you're hitting me with a fucking dictionary!" Ruby exchanged a bemused glance with Yang.

The brief scuffle ended when Emerald slapped Mercury's cards out of his hands and he had to dive onto the floor to scoop them up. Yang leaned to one side, smirking when he swore and tried to cover them with his body.

"Ah, dignity," Emerald sighed, propping one hand on her fist. "So nice to have."

He aimed a kick at her and accidentally sent one of his cards sliding until it hit Ruby's foot. She picked it up and giggled. "You dropped your Nevermore."

"...I hate this game."

He dropped a few cards facedown onto the table and rooted around for more. Yang was still looking over the edge, probably memorizing all of them. Emerald made eye contact with Ruby and raised a finger to her lips. Then she slid the cards under the edge of the map. Ruby had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing. He kept piling them up. She kept hiding them.

Eventually he straightened up, plopped down in his chair, and stared at the space in front of him. "Ha," he said dryly, glaring at Emerald. "Very funny. Where'd you put 'em?"

"I have no idea what you're—"

"He _what?!"_

Ruby startled so badly she knocked over her chair. The shout had come from across the hall—and a few seconds later she recognized the speaker.

"Well what _did _they ask for?" Weiss demanded, only slightly more quietly than a moment ago. And, after a short pause, "What—he wouldn't even have to _honor _that, why—no, I know..." The words got too muffled for them to understand after that. Ruby groped for the chair and set it back on its feet.

"Well." Mercury drummed his fingers on the table. "Someone's really overestimating dorm soundproofing."

"I'm gonna go see if she's okay," Ruby said, going for the door. She and Yang had been hanging out in Emerald and Mercury's room, which was halfway down the hall from their own. So Weiss had probably been shouting _really loud _for them to hear her that clearly. And if Ruby was right about that call...

They found Weiss sitting on her bed with both legs tucked under her, looking at her scroll like she'd just watched it strangle her firstborn. Blake was next to her, biting her lip, reaching out tentatively to touch her shoulder.

"Um... hey!" Ruby poked her head through the doorway and waved. "We um... sorta heard the noise."

"Oh. Right." Weiss rubbed her temple. "I hadn't thought about that."

"Are you..." She stopped herself, because 'Are you okay?' was a really dumb question to be asking right now. "What happened?"

Weiss' mouth twisted. "Winter called me. Apparently our father doesn't intend to negotiate with the people who took Whitley."

"What?" Yang stepped into the room and sat on her other side. "But..."

"I mean, the demands would have ruined the company—they essentially asked us to stop using Dust to inject dragon eggs, which is almost half of what we _do, _on top of giving up the secret to the ice dragons. But he'd only have to comply with the first one until Whitley was back, and the ice dragons could be made public knowledge after the fact. It'd be a setback, but..."

Ruby climbed over Yang so that she could hug Weiss. She couldn't _not_—hearing her making calculations like that, like she was trying to convince someone who wasn't even in the room with them, was just... too sad. Dad wouldn't have been able to think that far even if he wanted to.

It was a lot like hugging a wooden post, though, so she let go and squished herself between Weiss and Yang, wishing she had some clue what to say. A silence fell between them, heavy like the others were wishing the same thing.

They kept wishing for a long time.

* * *

Sky couldn't remember when he'd given up all pretense and started eating lunch in Mudslide's stall. He thought it had probably been around the second time he'd hand-fed he, when he'd decided he may as well feed himself while he was at it.

She was always too exhausted to eat after flight lessons. And he always sat with her, letting her rest her head in his lap, wiping vegetable juice and dragon spit on his ratty trousers. Then he usually sat for another hour or two, because she'd fall asleep on him and he wouldn't be able to move until the late afternoon.

If any of the other stable hands noticed he was spending hours on end sitting around instead of working, none of them said anything.

He found that he looked forward to those afternoons more than he did his days off, or the few times he'd been able to splurge a little and see a movie in Vale. As he headed towards the earth barn with a paper bag under his arm, ready to haul the metal trough onto the floor, he couldn't keep a smile from his face.

That was how Cardin found him. He was just leaving—Sky stopped dead, too busy wrestling with his own shock to form words. He hadn't seen Cardin in the stables in weeks. Most of the time Mudslide met him at their classes, now that she didn't need him to unbolt doors for her.

"The fuck are you smirking at?" Cardin demanded, giving Sky a shove.

Sky's fists clenched, but he managed to keep his cool. "Just been a good day," he said cheerfully, as if the past few months had never happened... though he couldn't resist a little dig. "Most of the riders remembered to clean up after their dragons, so I haven't had to shovel much shit."

Cardin's lip curled. Sky kept on smiling—it was actually a little exhilarating. What Cardin saw as his greatest humiliation had no power to hurt him. He had bigger things to be ashamed of than mucking stables.

"Didn't think you'd take so well to being a servant."

Sky shrugged. He wanted this conversation over—he hadn't had any incidents with Cardin recently, but he'd seen him walking around campus like he owned the place. Apparently Ozpin had gotten tired of the pathetic slap-on-the-wrist punishments he'd been giving out and decided to just let Cardin do whatever the hell he wanted.

It was a new power he was obviously eager to show off. He snatched the paper bag away from Sky and grabbed the sandwich from inside. "You're not really gonna eat this, are you? Seems like if you're sleeping in their stalls you might as well share their food, too."

He'd probably be healthier if he did—Mudslide ate mostly nuts and root vegetables, all he'd need to do was pick out the hay. "Whatever," he said, and tried to go around. Cardin grabbed him by the bicep.

"Hey, hey! I don't want you stealing from _my _dragon, alright?" He smirked. "Though maybe if she ate a little less she'd have a better time getting off the gr—"

The next thing Sky knew, Cardin was prone on the ground and he was standing over him. His wrist hurt. He shook it out, watching blood trickle from Cardin's nostril with a sort of primal satisfaction.

Then he realized what he'd just done.

"Shit," he muttered. "Shit—"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Cardin demanded, sitting up and putting a hand to his face. His voice was nasally. "I'm getting your ass fired this time." His eyes glittered. "Actually, fuck that. You should be _arrested."_

"Don't be such a wimp," Sky snapped, though his head was spinning.

"It's a repeat offense." Cardin smirked. "You've got a pattern of violent behavior. If we're not careful you might be a bad influence on the dragons."

Sky's back went rigid. He stared at Cardin for a moment, searching his eyes. There was a glitter there—he knew. He'd done that on purpose.

His ears were ringing. A hand reached out and closed around an old, rusted shovel, leaning against the barn wall a few feet from where the man in red had died.

"Hey!" Cardin backed up a step. "If you want to be a free man again before everybody here's sending each other pictures of their fucking _grandchildren—_" Sky swung at him. Missed. The shovel hit the side of the barn at an odd angle and almost jumped out of his hands.

He wasn't sure what Cardin saw in his face. Whatever it was, he didn't say another word—just turned and bolted towards the school. Sky chased after him, then hurled the shovel in his direction. It landed in the dirt with a quiet thump. Cardin kept running.

* * *

Mudslide jolted from an uneasy sleep when Sky burst through her stall door. If it had been anyone else she would have bitten them—she might still have bitten him if she wasn't so tired.

"Hey, girl," he whispered, casting a fearful glance over his shoulder. Mudslide tensed, then whined as the muscles in her chest burned. He knelt down to stroke her forehead softly, and her eyes slid most of the way shut.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, until Mudslide started to drift off again. Then Sky shivered and said, "I fucked up."

She opened one eye halfway, still more curious than alarmed. The look on his face brought her fully awake. A questioning rumble came from deep in her chest.

"I saw Cardin."

Her tail shifted weakly in the hay.

"I hit him. And tried to brain him with a shovel." He started to shake again, his shoulders drawing inward. "I'm sorry, girl, but I've got to go. Ozpin's defending him now, he'll—"

Mudslide lunged, catching his sleeve in her teeth and holding him there. He tugged at it and muttered a curse under his breath. "I have to," he said again, pleading. "If I don't they'll take me away anyway."

She pulled and Sky overbalanced, catching himself on her shoulder. "Mudslide..."

"Nnn..." The growl was low and edged with desperation, more panicked instinct than first word. "Nno!"

"I can't take you with me. They'd hunt us down, they'd try to—I can't do that."

She growled again. No words this time, just a clenched jaw. Seams popped and threads snapped, each one severing another little tie between them.

"I'll be back." He touched her forehead with his free hand. "I swear. If that psychopath could sneak in with a gun, I can come see you."

"No!"

He flinched. "You don't want me to—"

Again, panicked. "No! No!"

"...You want me to stay."

She nodded, his arm waving up and down with the motion.

"Do... do you want me to visit?"

A small whine.

"I have to go. Either I go now, before Cardin can report me, and I can visit you later... or I might go away for good. I don't know."

That wasn't a choice at all. Why did Sky have to be so _stupid _sometimes—you didn't fight _Cardin._ Nothing good ever came from fighting Cardin.

In a sudden surge of anger, Mudslide yanked on his sleeve. It tore, and he stumbled back towards the stall door. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'll come see you as soon as I can, I swear."

Her roar shook the walls. On either side of her, neighbors whimpered and put their paws over their ears. All except one, at the very end of the line, in a stall that had gone unused for most of the year. Its occupant padded across the barn floor, then poked her head over the door.

"Are you alright?" Jade asked. Mudslide growled at her. She sat down outside, resting her chin on the door, waiting patiently for Mudslide to speak.

Eventually, she did. Jade spoke back. And an hour later, she left.

* * *

**Alright! I will be back Friday, with a chapter that I am _super _excited about. For... reasons!**


	14. Hostage Negotiation

**Hi again, and I hope you all enjoy!**

* * *

**14\. Hostage Negotiation**

* * *

Hunger.

The food smelled wrong. Bitter.

He wanted to bury it, but he couldn't move. The strap over his mouth was gone, but there were more now, all over his body. He roared but no one came.

Time passed. This new stall was worse than the old one, dark and cramped and smelly. Better now than before, when it wobbled and moved.

Noise. Maybe they were coming to give him more food. He didn't want this food. It smelled like his last meal, the sleepy meal. If he ate it he'd wake up somewhere else. Somewhere worse.

Where was Jacques?

The door clicked open. Light. Three shadows in the light—strangers. The strangers he'd been smelling since he woke up. In one of their hands...

Needle.

He roared. One of the strangers yelped and stumbled backwards. The other, the one with the needle, held it out in front of her. He struggled and squirmed but couldn't move. Needles were bad. Only Jacques was allowed to use them—a light touch on the back of his neck from those perfect hands, worth anything that happened after...

These were not those hands. He made the cold inside come outside, watched pretty crystals form on steel walls. A scream. The needle dropped to the ground. So did the woman who had held it. She cradled her arm, staring at blackened fingers covered in hoarfrost.

A man was next to her, a man with scales on his jaw. There was a stick in his hand. A sniff—metal, and something tangy and smoky and strange.

A loud nose. Pain.

He filled the stall with the killing mist. Frost grew up on the straps until they hardened and cracked. He forced his way free, slamming his tail against the wall and denting the metal there. Another loud noise. More pain.

He pinned the noisy man to the ground and shrieked. Mist billowed from his throat and the noisy man went quiet. He smashed the needle and the noisy thing with his paw. The needle shattered. The noisy thing didn't break, so he threw it in the stall with the bad food.

When he looked up, the man with the tusks was gone and the woman was asleep.

Pain. It was coming from his chest. He craned his neck, looking for the source, found two small holes in his shoulder. They smelled like metal too. Needles... big needles, noisy ones, ones that hurt instead of making him sleepy.

He sniffed the air, looked around, squinted. Everything was too bright. He could see the ground going out in every direction, falling away until it touched the sky. His tail thrashed. Where was home?

A scream. Like the others—a fear scream—but different. Familiar. He sniffed again and followed the smell he knew. More strangers came. Some of them had the big needles with them. He flared his wings to look bigger, and there was noise. Pain in his hind leg. He pounced, made the ones with the big needles stop. The others ran away, except one who put his hands on one of the noisy people. He must want the big needle. A puff of mist, and he couldn't reach for it anymore.

Around the side of a building. Here there was a big field, like the ones he'd run in as a hatchling. With Snowflake. Four more of the strangers stood in a row. One was holding up a tiny square, pointing it at the other three.

And between the other three, screaming and struggling, was the small Jacques.

A sound built up in him. A sound like a thousand crystal glasses shattering, like wind howling around a frozen peak, like driving hail and the squealing of rusty metal hinges. He jumped into the air, clawed at it with his wings—an instinct he'd never been taught. It wasn't enough to get him off the ground, but he glided towards them and hit the ground sprinting.

Now the strangers were screaming too. Three had the big needles. Two of those pointed them at him, made the noises. Only one stung him, this time in his chest. The other turned to the small one, grabbed his hair—

No killing mist. No hurting the small Jacques. His teeth found the third stranger, tearing at the arm that held the big needle and moving it away from the small one. It made noise. So did the woman hanging from his jaws. He threw her away, swung his tail through both the other strangers. He crouched, ready to pounce on them when they got up. They didn't.

The one with the strange square had dropped it in the dirt. He made talking noises. None of them were familiar. He was far away from the small one. A puff of mist, and there was no more noise.

Except a whimper, behind him. The small one was still standing, shaking, his eyes blown wide. His mouth moved like he was trying to make talking noises, but none came.

This was a bad place. Too many strangers. Too many needles. The small Jacques was fragile.

His teeth sank into the small one's jacket—there was even a handle at the top—and he dropped him onto his back where he would be safe. There was a small yelp, then silence. Hands on his shoulders, knees pressing against his back...

Not those hands... but close.

Home. He should go home. Jacques would make it better.

_Needles at night. Blue-eyed faces that peered through metal bars, through the hole in the wall, then vanished. A glimpse of fantastic lights through a tiny window, singing a half-remembered melody to an unreachable sky... until that, too, was silenced._

He didn't want home, he wanted Jacques. But there would never be one without the other.

A low, melancholic whistle. It turned into another attempt to remember—a liquid cascade of notes, pure and bright, slipping away...

What did he want? He wanted to be away from here. No more needles for tonight.

Glacier picked a direction and started walking.

* * *

Harbinger stood between his riders.

Corsac was on his left, straight-backed and tense, his tail twitching. He was all stern words and discipline—Harbinger would stay between them throughout the visit. He would not touch anything. He would understand why this was necessary.

On his right was Fennac, his ears pinned back against his hood, hands twining around one another under his sleeves. He murmured quiet encouragement, snuck light touches behind Harbinger's ear to soothe him.

Before them was the place the faunus called the lab. Harbinger had never been allowed inside before today, but he knew what to expect. Knew what the thick chemical stench in the air meant. His riders had explained why it was necessary.

There were bad people called humans who controlled everything, and it was the humans' fault the lab existed. Faunus like his riders needed help to fight back. Harbinger could help... and he was alive because of the lab. Soon there would be more dragons like him, and they could overthrow the people in power and make it right.

All Harbinger could think as he stepped inside was, _I was born in this place._

First was a small room, filled with incubators and eggs still untouched by Dust. Harbinger sniffed them, taking some comfort in the reprieve from the heavy chemical tang. But he and his riders didn't linger in that room for long.

A thick canvas curtain parted in front of him. The smell was worse beyond it, thick and choking. He stopped walking. Rows of eggs in a multitude of colors, sitting in incubators. Vials of Dust, bright and dazzling. Two faunus with long white gloves and masks paced among the eggs. They glanced up when Harbinger came in. One tilted back her mask and smiled, and it eased some of the fear to realize that these weren't strangers.

But he had to wonder—had one of them cradled him in gloved hands when he was first born?

There was no movement. Everything was clean, or as clean as equipment could be in the middle of the forest. Most of the smell was of Dust, and of other things—strange liquids in glass jars. It couldn't quite hide the scent of death.

Corsac walked further into the tent and tapped his foot on the ground. _Come._ Harbinger whined, pawed the ground, and went.

His riders knelt on either side of him. "Do you understand why this place exists?" Corsac asked.

Harbinger nodded. It would go away when the faunus were safe. He would make them safe, and it would go away.

"Good." Fennec scratched him behind the ears. Harbinger squirmed. It felt nice, but he didn't want to feel nice here. He wanted to go outside. Outside where he couldn't smell all the little dragons that hadn't been, couldn't see the bins of broken eggshells, couldn't hear—tapping. He could hear tapping.

Harbinger reared up, stretching his neck, turning his head to seek out the noise. Corsac jumped to his feet, holding out his arms. "Stop!"

He turned, found the egg. The tapping was getting more insistent now, impatient, frustrated...

"What do you see, Harbinger?" Fennec asked.

Harbinger approached the egg and sniffed. This was a different smell, a _better_ smell. He pushed his snout against the shell—_tap_—and got an answer—_tap tap!_

"It's hatching," Fennec breathed.

Corsac swore. "Harbinger, get away from there. Go outside with Fennec."

"Come on." Fennec approached, put a warm hand on his back.

Harbinger hardly heard either of them. The egg was sandy yellow, veined with darker brown, and this time when he tapped it with his nose the hatchling's answer broke through into open air. Two eyes blinked at him, a yellow so bright it was almost white.

The hatchling stared at him for several long seconds as the technicians scrambled for towels. Its blazing eyes roved around, fixed first on Corsac, then each of the technicians in turn. Then it cheeped angrily and threw itself against the shell still constricting most of its body, sending itself toppling off the edge of the incubator. Harbinger barked in alarm and dove for the egg. Missed.

It shattered. The hatchling inside squirmed for a moment, disoriented. Then she stretched, shook off flakes of dried egg goo, and tested her legs.

A technician arrived with a towel and tried to scoop her into his arms. She hissed and latched onto Harbinger's face. He reared in alarm, making the hatchling squeak and dig in with tiny claws.

Harbinger turned to his riders and whimpered, hoping they would make the angry hatchling let go. Both were staring, wide-eyed. Corsac grabbed his brother by the arm.

"Find Sienna. Now!"

* * *

"—hell they were thinking!" Sienna paced back and forth, her mind whirling. "Taking the dragon was a step too far, and now we've lost _nine._ Ten, if you count Dahlia. And for what?!"

Ilia shifted from foot to foot. "Nine... nine dead?"

Sienna stopped herself. Forced a breath in, let it out. She would not take her frustration out on her subordinates. Especially since Ilia wasn't really a subordinate—not with her connection to Adam. Breathe...

"Yes. And one will probably lose an arm."

"I don't understand," Ilia said. "Why did they take him, then?"

"More leverage." Sienna couldn't have hid the sneer, so she didn't try. "There are only three ice dragons in the world. And three Schnee children." She grimaced. "I've met the man. If he can breed more, I doubt he cares."

"Are you talking about the dragon, or...?"

"Both." She resumed pacing. It helped steady her nerves, which was good—she would have to get through a meeting with the others very soon, without snapping and telling them that they were idiots for supporting this in the first place.

That was what galled her. She'd told them from the moment Cinder proposed it through an _extremely _displeased Hazel that the benefits didn't outweigh the risks. Corsac had looked her dead in the eye and told her that it was only natural to feel uncomfortable working with the humans, but it was a necessary evil. Now there were nine dead. Ten, if Dahlia didn't pull through.

Half a cell gone in less than ten minutes flat. It would be a miracle if none of the rest deserted, especially now that every military power in Remnant wanted their heads even more than usual. When it hit the news... recruitment would drop. Some would think they were cruel for kidnapping a child. Others would think they were idiots for kidnapping a fully grown dragon. Most just wouldn't want to end up dead.

And what had they gained?

"What do we do, then?" Ilia asked.

Sienna took another breath. That was an excellent question. "There's very little we _can _do. We don't have the resources to recapture them. The best thing for us would be for Atlas to take them back quickly. If it doesn't go through the news we won't lose as much public support. Then we wait out the military backlash... it's a matter of minimizing losses, at this point." It took a small cough from Ilia to realize she'd lapsed into mumbling to herself.

"I apologize." She rubbed her forehead, trying to squeeze away the headache. "You can go if you like. I needed to say all that to someone other than the Albains."

"Right." Ilia hesitated. "Then... can I help you with anything, or—" She stopped, craning her neck to look over her shoulder. "Fennec?"

He sprinted up to her tent and stopped with his hands on his knees, panting and struggling to get enough breath to speak. "Egg," he choked out.

Then it was Sienna who was running. Her stomach roiled as she ripped back the curtain. Maybe it was the smell, or maybe just the dread certainty of what she was about to see...

"Nnno!"

...A dread certainty that had not prepared her for the sight of Harbinger running in little circles, wailing at the top of his lungs while a tiny hatchling clung to his face, wings flapping wildly. She let out a startled laugh—if _that _wasn't a sign of good health, nothing was.

The hatchling's head swiveled at the sound. Two sun-yellow eyes bored into her own. It squealed imperiously at Harbinger. He whined and tried to coax it to the ground with one paw.

Sienna came to his rescue with trembling hands. The hatchling's dull yellow scales rasped like sandpaper against her fingertips as she lifted it gently away from the other hybrid. He looked uninjured, thankfully.

Teeth sank into the webbing between her pointer finger and thumb. Sienna hissed in a breath, cradling the tiny creature as best as she could in one arm while the other throbbed. "Food," she snapped at the technicians.

She knelt down to feed the dragon and noticed for the first time that there were lines of dusty brown on its scales—like the cracks in desiccated clay. Its eyes were piercing and constantly on the move, roving around as if it couldn't get enough of anything it was seeing. That, or it was hungry and looking for food.

The technician dropped a bag by her elbow. They didn't have apple slices, like the academies used—most of what they ate was shipped to them from allies in the city. If they wanted something fresh, they had to pick it off a bush or kill it themselves. And with the mortality rate...

It squinted at the handful of oats she'd offered it, then bit down harder. Pain erupted from her hand—the skin there split and cracked right before her eyes. The dragon tried to lap at the wound with a rough tongue, and it was like she'd just dragged the wound across asphalt.

"Stop that!" she hissed, trying to yank the hand back. The little devil went for her thumb, and she only just snatched it away in time. "You!" She jabbed a finger in the direction of one of the onlookers, neither knowing nor caring which one. "Find fruit. Meat. Anything."

Sienna had to hold the creature's jaw shut to keep it from biting her. It huffed indignantly and dug into her arms with tiny claws. Soon her skin was almost as scaly as the dragonet's.

Someone dropped a can of peaches by her feet. She ripped it open an offered the hatchling a slice. It stared at her. Maintained eye-contact. Slowly reached out... and bit her hand. Sienna swore viciously under her breath.

Ilia knelt by her elbow. "Biting is completely normal for fire dragons. I looked like a scratching post for weeks after I got to Haven."

"Is refusing to eat also normal?" Sienna asked, pushing more peaches at the hatchling. It turned its nose up and blew dry air at her face. _"Stop _that."

"...No. Definitely not."

Sienna narrowed her eyes at the dragonet. She was _not _losing a creature this healthy because it refused to eat. She'd pinch it's stubborn little jaw open if she had to—

Another puff of arid breath. Her whole left hand was hit this time. When she clenched it into a fist around the peach—which was now just about mummified—the skin around all her joints split.

The hatchling let out a happy cheep and lunged for the peach slice. Sienna was so startled she dropped it on the ground, and watched in mild astonishment as it was devoured.

Then she looked at the can of peaches, still mostly full. At the hatchling, which was opening its mouth and squealing for more. At her hand. She dropped another segment several feet away from herself and let the dragon figure out the rest.

Slowly, she turned from the feasting dragonet and locked eyes with one of the technicians.

"Bring me raisins."

* * *

Ilia left with the hatchling perched on Sienna's shoulder, craning its neck to get a better view as its pale yellow eyes flickered around the tent. Drinking in this strange new world outside its egg.

As she pulled back the flap and let in a breath of slightly fresher air—"Ilia."

"Yes?"

Sienna gestured to the dragonet. It had put one of its hind paws through her earring at some point and was trying to climb to the top of her head. "Can you tell the sex?"

"No. Apparently it's complicated, or subtle. I didn't ask."

"Ah." Sienna scratched its tiny head. "I think she's female." The hatchling didn't object. Unless you counted snapping at Sienna's hand, but that had been happening on and off for the past several minutes whenever the volume of raisins slowed down too much.

Ilia managed a small smile. "She's wonderful."

Sienna frowned. "She's strong. I think she'll survive." A wince. "Though I'm starting to worry it's my blood she's after and not the fruit."

"Like I said. It's completely normal for fire dragons, and... I guess fire hybrids, too." She managed a wistful grin. "I'm surprised Adam never lost any fingers." The smile slipped as she felt a hollow pang.

She'd always hated the way Blake looked at him, how it made her blind to everyone else. Especially Ilia. But she was starting to wonder if she'd missed something in the way he'd looked at Blake. She'd never thought he'd...

But maybe she understood that impulse better than she wanted to.

"I should go," she said, after a moment. "I want to see Brand before it gets dark."

On the way there, walking with one hand on Justice's shoulder, she thought about Brand curled up in the shadows. The chain. Wondered if he always treated the ones he loved like that.

They were still almost a hundred yards from the cave entrance when Justice stopped. He sniffed the air, narrowed his eyes. Ilia motioned for him to stop—a dragon the size of an elephant could only move so quietly.

Her heartbeat sounded in her throat as she approached. She knew what this must be—Justice had smelled someone, someone besides Hazel. And the only other person who knew...

A quiet, choked sob.

_Oh._ Ilia froze, crouched behind the bushes that hid the cave entrance. It felt like she was tipping over a ledge, months of separation evaporating in an instant.

"You don't have to tense up like that."

It had been so long since she'd heard that voice. The moment she did, she could hardly believe she'd thought the first one was Blake.

There was a sniffle. "I hate this. I should be able to just _stop."_

Ilia backed up a step. She'd brought someone else, _here._ Probably a teammate... a _human _teammate. One of the sisters, maybe. Why wasn't Brand doing anything?

"That's definitely not how this works."

"It's ridiculous. There should be an off switch."

A low chuckle. The hair on the back of Ilia's neck stood up.

"You know... you don't need to turn it off. It's just me. And the dragons, but they don't mind."

"I can't just... ugh. Let me repress my emotions in peace."

"Can't, sorry."

For a moment, both were silent. Ilia stayed frozen, torn between creeping away while she had the chance and trying to get closer. She needed to _see._

"Weiss..."

And then, just like that, she didn't need to see anymore. Didn't _want _to see.

"I know it was a joke, but please... it's okay if this hurts. I can't imagine what it must feel like, but..."

Time to leave. Time to turn around and _go _before they noticed she was there. She didn't want to see Blake sitting with the Schnee. But what was _wrong _with Brand?! And why was she—

_The brother. Damn it._

"I called Father. Suggested ways to meet the demands without... well, you know. Without ruining the company."

Ilia tensed. _That callous—_

"He _still _won't. It's the ice dragons, I'm sure it is. He won't release the formula afterwards. If he gives up the monopoly he won't be able to get another one."

"Maybe if—"

"And even if he does, they could just—" The voice broke. "It might not matter."

_Oh._

"...I'm sorry."

Ilia glanced at Justice, who was shifting impatiently from foot to foot. _I owe her this much, _she thought. Because even if she wasn't sure when, she had this inescapable feeling that she'd failed Blake somehow.

She wished she'd thought to bring her mask.

Before she could think better of it, Ilia stepped into the mouth of the cave—and there she was. Staring up at her with wide eyes, dark hair falling in waves... the bow she'd started tying around her ears near the end, wrapped loosely around her wrist.

"He's alive," Ilia blurted, before she could look at the other one—too late. Blue eyes, going from shock to piercing scrutiny.

"You—" The venom in her voice made Brand's tail twitch.

There was a confused rumble somewhere to their left. _Right, _Ilia thought, cursing herself. _Obviously they would have brought their dragons._

"He escaped!" She backed up a few steps. "With the dragon. They're both probably on their way to Atlas right now."

"You mean... her brother?" Blake shook her head. "Wait, Ilia—what are you doing here? Are you okay?"

"Don't follow me." She ran before Blake could change her mind.

Justice perked up when she sprinted outside, already tensing for a fight. "We're leaving," she said, grabbing his shoulder and hoisting herself onto his back. "Come on!"

He huffed and tossed his head. There was movement at the mouth of the cave. "Justice, come on! I don't want them to see you!"

"Rr... Rrand."

"Okay," she hissed, "but later!"

Justice dug in his claws, stubbornly refusing to move. Both of them were outside now, they'd seen him. "Go!" she whispered.

He bared his teeth at Blake and the Schnee, then bolted into the woods with Ilia clinging to his back.

"There," she murmured. "We're even."

She remembered the chain, and knew they weren't.

* * *

**Glacier! Harbinger! A new dragonet! Gah, this one was really fun to write.**


	15. What We've Got Here

**Hello! I come bearing sandbags, shiny objects, and the newest hatchling!**

* * *

**15\. What We've Got Here...**

* * *

Twiggy took off for the fifth time in one afternoon. It was a struggle, with her wings clawing the air the whole time and the muscles in her chest burning, but she finally looped back around and landed heavily in the grass.

Taking off was getting easier, but she was falling so far behind. She paced back and forth, needing to rest yet too frustrated to stay still.

_Flying lessons used to be fun._

Gust said she needed to follow the schedule Oobleck gave her, but he kept changing it. If _he _didn't know how much she was supposed to carry, how was she supposed to get better? What if he made a mistake and didn't give her enough weight, and then she could never carry Jaune?

Twiggy was so lost in thought that she almost tripped over another dragon's tail. She jerked to a stop and apologized—then reared in alarm when she realized it was Mudslide.

"Move," Mudslide snarled... but it wasn't very intimidating. She was carrying a lot of weights, and didn't look like she'd have the energy to start a fight. Still, Twiggy apologized again and backed away. She didn't want Mudslide to be angry at her.

As the other dragon walked away, Twiggy stopped and sat down to watch her run the ramp. It was obvious she was struggling. When she reached the end, she roared and beat the air with her wings, rising sluggishly.

It had worked. Twiggy looked around and saw that there was a small pile of weights nearby—probably there in case one was dropped or broke open. No one was looking.

She grabbed one gently in her teeth and craned her neck to deposit it on her back. But no, it would just fall off in the air. She thought for a moment, then wedged it between two other sandbags that were properly tied into place. It would stay. Probably.

Another two weights later, she turned her attention to the ramp and flared her wings. She _would _carry Jaune. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, she sprinted up the ramp. Every step burned, but she kept going. She _had _to keep going.

Maybe she was small, but Jaune had kept her anyway. There had been so many lessons that were harder for him because of that...

The end of the ramp loomed. She felt herself slowing down, roared in frustration. Jaune kept her. She had to be able to do this. Everything narrowed to the ramp, to the leaden feeling in her legs as she pushed off. Her wings flared out, catching the air. She flapped twice, felt herself lifting off... and then, _fire._

Twiggy howled, listing in midair as one of her wings went limp. She flapped frantically with the other, trying to glide to the ground, but then she tipped and rolled and all of a sudden she couldn't even tell which way was up—

Some instinct made her angle herself so that she hit the ground with her hind legs rather than her fragile wings. Grass and dirt flew everywhere, and she rolled four times before eventually coming to a stop. One of the sandbags fell off and burst where it landed, scattering its contents everywhere.

Somewhere high above her Titan shrieked in alarm. Then, seconds later, Jaune tore across the field, Pyrrha only a few feet behind him. Twiggy shook herself, testing for injuries. Her hind legs hurt, but she was pretty sure that was just soreness. One wing was fine, but the other still wouldn't move. The muscles in her chest on that side hurt too much.

Slowly, she started walking towards her rider, head hanging and one wing dragging.

"Twiggy!" He threw both arms around her neck. "Are you okay?"

She tilted her head in a so-so gesture and tried to move her wing. He ran his hands over the joints, checking for fractures. Pyrrha joined him moments later, and after her Gust landed with Doctor Oobleck.

The professor examined her wing, poked her a few times, before eventually touching her chest and frowning at her wince.

"Pulled muscle," he decided. "It'll be right as rain after a week or two of rest."

Jaune sagged with relief.

"No flying lessons of course—"

Twiggy whined indignantly. She was _already _behind!

"None of that," Oobleck said, giving her a very stern look. "It might take months to heal if you get impatient and fly again too soon."

She looked to Gust. "But—"

The older dragon gave her a sympathetic look, but shook her head. Her tail drooped.

"Now." The professor gave Jaune a piercing stare. "I notice there are quite a few more weights in that saddle than I recommended."

"What?" Her rider looked at the saddle and paled. "But I didn't—"

Twiggy whimpered and covered her head with her paws. "Muh... me," she admitted.

"Ah. I see. In that case..." He gave Twiggy a serious look. "I'll need to let Dragonmaster Ozpin know, but I believe you've already learned your lesson."

She nodded vigorously.

"Yes. Quite." His expression softened, and he patted her gently on the shoulder. "There is no shame in needing a little more time spent on conditioning. You're already well ahead of where I expected you to be by this time."

Twiggy blinked at him. _What?_

He noticed her expression and smiled. "Of course. I planned to keep you on the same schedule as the other earth dragons, pushed back by about two weeks. That seems to roughly equal the difference in size... but I've needed to adjust it several times based on your progress."

She wasn't behind? Or she was, but she'd thought it was much worse than a few weeks. Her ears drooped as she realized that after hurting her wing, she really _would _be as far behind as she'd thought.

"It's okay girl," Jaune said, stroking her neck. "Think about it this way—maybe you can't practice while you're healing, but you'll still keep growing."

Twiggy perked up a little at that, though she was still frustrated with herself. She hadn't thought to ask Gust how Oobleck was planning her weight schedule. Then again, they hadn't thought to tell her either... maybe because none of the others cared as much.

Jaune led her back to her stall, with Pyrrha and Titan accompanying them. Jaune and Twiggy both tried to tell them that they didn't have to skip class, but it was hard to walk with her wing hurt. The two humans let it rest on their shoulders, which was a much better angle than dragging it behind her on the ground. Titan carried a sack of ice from the infirmary in his jaws, which Twiggy could curl up with to soothe the injury. Specter had offered to visit her every so often to make sure it stayed frozen.

Finally, after Pyrrha and Titan had said their goodbyes and gone back to their flying lesson, Jaune sat next to her and leaned against her shoulder. She put her head in his lap, purring quietly. Her chest still hurt, but the ice helped.

"So..." Jaune scratched behind her ears. "What was that about?"

Twiggy whined again. "Suh... Lo..."

"Slow?" He frowned. "What was slow?"

"Mme."

Jaune shook his head. "You're not slow. Everyone else just has a bit of a head start, that's all. It's not your fault."

Twiggy let out a frustrated huff. She wanted to say all those things about how he'd picked her, even though it made everything harder for him. How she wanted to take off with him on the same day as all the others. How much she hated the thought of watching him sitting on the sidelines, all alone, while the rest of their class took to the skies and she kept struggling with the stupid sandbags.

Maybe he guessed some of it from her expression. "Hey. Don't do that, okay?" He kissed her nose. "You're my best girl, remember? I'd rather wait an extra month, an extra _year,_ than have you hurt yourself."

She warbled, torn between guilt and comfort, and buried her face in his shirt. He made a small grunting noise, and she realized belatedly that she _might _be getting a little big for that. She let up a little and, this time taking extra care to be gentle, nuzzled at his cheek.

"Yeah," he said, smiling. "I love you too."

* * *

Night was falling.

That told Whitley absolutely nothing—he wasn't even sure what time zone he was in anymore. Glacier had wandered into a forest, and now the only landmarks they passed were fallen trees and streams. It definitely wasn't Atlas, because there wasn't room for a forest this size. It wasn't Mantle either, because then he'd be able to _see _Atlas... and he suspected there would be more snow.

Whitley shivered. It was plenty cold enough as it was. He tried to shift his position on Glacier's back, then stopped when he scratched himself on one of the dragon's spines.

"Glacier?" He turned his head, deep blue eyes blinking guilelessly back at Whitley. "I want to go home."

Blank stare.

"Home. Schnee manor. Atlas." He glanced at the sky, guessed which way was west based on the setting sun. "North," he said, pointing.

Glacier followed his index finger, staring into the woods for several long seconds. Then, apparently satisfied, he ignored Whitley and kept walking roughly southeast.

"Glacier!"

The dragon turned his head and whistled.

Well. At least he knew his name. "Home! Fly home!" He pointed again.

Blank stare.

"People!" Whitley shouted. "Find people!"

Glacier tilted his head to one side.

"Father! Go to father. Your _rider._

Still nothing.

"Jacques Schnee!"

At that, Glacier perked up. He chirped happily and sped up to a trot... still heading the wrong way. Whitley nearly screamed in frustration.

As the last of the sunlight faded, the temperature plummeted. Whitley tucked his legs underneath himself—still in his dress shoes, his socks still soaked through. Glacier's hide was cool to the touch. Soon he was trembling so badly he had to hold onto the spines to keep from falling off... or impaling himself by accident.

"F-fire." He wasn't sure why he was bothering. Glacier couldn't make a fire even if he wanted to. "Find p-people," he tried again. "Glacier!"

The dragon's only response was a placid stare.

Whitley couldn't stop imagining what they'd say on the news. _Schnee heir escapes the White Fang on dragonback... dies of exposure hours later._ Weren't dragons supposed to be smart enough to understand human speech?

"Come _on!"_ He whacked the back of Glacier's neck—

The great head snapped around, eyes narrowed to deep blue slits. Hackles rose to reveal teeth as long as his fingers. Mist spilled out from between the terrible jaws, rolling over him, the cold sinking right down to his bones. A hiss like a thin layer of ice over frozen depths, creaking in warning...

"I'm sorry!" Whitley blurted, raising his hands. Glacier's hiss rose in volume—he didn't understand the words, and the tone was panicked. He put his palms down flat on his knees. "I'm sorry," he said again, this time doing his best to sound calm, reassuring. "I won't do it again."

Slowly, warily, Glacier closed his mouth. He kept glaring at Whitley a moment longer. Then, finally, he turned back around and kept walking.

Whitley slumped in relief, then yelped when he pricked himself on one of Glacier's spines. Blood beaded on the inside of his forearm. His head swam. This was the most he'd bled... _ever, _as far as he could remember. (He didn't want to think about what the White Fang were about to do, why they were filming and what all the guns were for...) Not knowing what else to do, he pressed the cut against his pants and tried to ignore it.

Still shivering, he drew Rusty's coat around himself. It wasn't enough. He took off his socks and shoes and, despite the fact that it looked absolutely ridiculous, hung them on Glacier's spines. If the dragon noticed, he didn't seem to care—and it would be harder to prick himself on them now. His feet he curled under himself, trying to get as much of his body as possible beneath the jacket.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Something was wrong with the small Jacques.

Glacier checked over his shoulder. He was still shaking. Fear?

Should he not have hissed at the small one? The attack hadn't hurt very much—he might not have noticed if it hadn't made a noise. But why was the little human angry with him? He huffed, making pretty patterns on the trunk of a tree. Had he done something wrong?

The small one shuddered, his teeth chattering. Glacier whined. Even if he hadn't done anything wrong, he hadn't wanted to scare him. He licked the human's face in apology. A startled noise, then more shivering.

He didn't know how to fix it.

Frustrated, he sped to a trot. It was harder to move fast now than it had been when he was a hatchling, and soon he had to slow down to breathe. The stings from the big needles ached. His chest heaving, mist spilling from between his jaws, Glacier wondered what he should do next.

He didn't want home. He wanted Jacques... but Jacques was home, and anyway Glacier didn't know where to find him. A high, keening noise started somewhere in his chest. Up and down... but he couldn't remember the pattern. Couldn't do it fast enough. Not the same.

Why was he walking?

Glacier stopped, meandered in a little circle, and lay down. What else was there to do but go to sleep?

"Glacier!"

He opened one eye. The small one was nudging his side—gently, now. No hitting. Good... The eye slid shut.

"Glacier!" Then many words he didn't know. Loud. He looked at the small one. Still shaking. Still scared.

He whistled a few notes, and the small one went quiet. Glacier's eyes fluttered shut, and he kept singing, trying to find... but he couldn't remember. Eventually he went quiet too, opening his eyes to look at the little Jacques.

And just like that, it was obvious.

If he went home, they'd take the little Jacques away. The thought ached... the small one was good. Hands on his back. Not the cherished ones, the ones that had faded into hazy memory, but still good. And if one small one was good...

There were others. The steely one, and the singing one. If one made him feel better... maybe with three, he'd feel whole again.

* * *

Light!

It danced across the floor... paused. Trembled. It felt fear. _Good._

She pounced!

The light darted away. She hissed, drawing herself up. Distantly, she heard a giggle.

Again. It approached, dancing between her legs. _Mocking her!_ Her teeth snapped shut, but she tasted only dirt. A claw slammed down on the ground, but the light slipped between her claws and escaped.

She growled. It had been under her paw, she _knew _it had! Her head tilted to one side. Watching, motionless, as the light circled her. Sometimes it would vanish, then reappear again a little further away.

It couldn't touch her shadow!

She tried to trap it by making a ring with her tail and casting the shadow around it. The light skipped through it. Where did it go when it disappeared like that?

She turned herself, held out her tail again. This time, when the light jumped over her shadow, she saw it flash across her scales. It was on her! _It must be destroyed._

The light always jumped on the same side of her tail when she held it out. She turned in that direction, stalking closer and closer. If she kept going, surely the light would eventually be trapped.

Instead, she found one of the faunus doing something strange. It was the one who smelled like Justice. In her lap, a strange object. A _shiny _object. She tilted it back and forth, back and forth... and the light danced.

_This _was its source!

She pretended not to notice. Kept chasing the light in little circles... always coming closer and closer to the faunus' feet. Then she coiled herself up, tensed, staring at the bright spot in front of her... but gauging the distance to her left. Wait... wait...

She pounced.

The faunus yelped and fell off the crate she was sitting on. The shiny thing was in her paws, now. She bit down. It tasted... oddly blank. A little like metal. She chewed.

Laughter.

The big man with no face had come up from behind a nearby tent, chuckling at the fire rider. Both were speaking. Harpy tilted her head and listened, her prey still trapped in her jaws, trying to parse the unfamiliar words.

Eventually the fire rider took the shiny thing away. She tried to bite to defend her prize, but the faunus was too quick. The big man walked away, his boots passing just inches in front of her.

He had the stinging smell on him.

She followed in his footsteps, snapping playfully at his heels. A little while later he stopped, bending down and pointing at the ground—that meant he wanted her to stay. She tried to follow. He picked her up and placed her on the ground, then jabbed his finger into the dirt. More firmly this time.

When she stayed put, he turned and vanished into the big tent—the only place she wasn't allowed to go. She'd never seen anyone go inside it before. Usually it was sealed shut with metal teeth. She crept closer, waiting for an opening...

He closed the tent behind him. She wilted in disappointment, but only for an instant. As the opening sealed shut, she noticed something she had missed until that moment. A metal tab, sticking out from the canvas. He had pulled it to make the teeth open and close.

Like the shiny thing—pretend not to notice until they let their guard down. That game was much more fun than the ones the faunus played with her on purpose.

She wandered back to Sienna's tent. As she waited, she chewed through a sack and found oats. Boring. She dried out the oats until they crumbled into dust, and played in the bag for a while. Sneezed. Still boring. She poked her head outside and eyed the big tent, but... no. Too soon.

Some time later, light spilled into the tent. And a smell—the _best _smell. Sienna.

She charged, concentrating hard to keep her legs under her, and plowed into her rider's legs. A startled laugh from above her. Then strong hands under her forelegs, lifting her up until they were face to face. She licked her rider's nose, watched her scrunch up her face in response.

"Look at you..." A finger tickled her forehead. She purred, eyes going halfway shut. More words she didn't understand. She squirmed and clambered up onto her rider's forearm. From there she leaped, flaring her wings to turn her fall into a clumsy half-glide.

Sienna sat down and let her curl up in her lap, falling into a drowsy half-doze. And for a few hours, she didn't even think about the big tent. Her rider was busy, though, and had to leave much too soon. She waited a while longer after that, chewing on a piece of rope outside the tent. Slowly, the sky turned from blue to purple. It was time.

She knew that Sienna would want her to be there when she got back to her tent—but that was always when the sky turned from purple to black. In the meantime she approached the big tent, careful to meander as she went. She chased a butterfly for a few minutes, then pretended to be enraptured by a shiny rock on the ground a little closer to her target.

Then, when no one was looking, she pounced. Her whole body buzzed with excitement as she grasped the little metal tab in her teeth and pulled. It took a long time to get it to open wide enough to slip through, and by the time she was done her mouth and the muscles in her neck ached.

Inside, the sharp smell was much stronger. She almost turned around and left. Except... there was something _familiar _about it. And when she looked up, she saw glass tubes that glowed pretty colors. Strange metal tools on shelves. Eggs nestled in gigantic machines.

And, towards the back, another canvas door—this one with no teeth. She sniffed at it and recoiled. Something else, something worse than the sharp smell. Slowly, she poked her head through the gap.

Two sun-yellow eyes, wide and staring. Two glassy green ones, staring blankly back.

She squeaked in terror and pulled her head back, heart pounding. Then, when no one came for her, she approached the flap again. Dread pooled in her stomach. She didn't want to look... but she couldn't go away without knowing.

There was another hatchling inside. Not moving. That was where the worst smell was coming from, the wrong smell. The death smell. He was curled on his side, motionless. Faunus crouched over him, prodding at him with metal tools, talking to one another. The words cascaded down around her, incomprehensible, all except for one.

Their tone was casual. Uncaring. And the one word was, "Again."


	16. Missing

**Hi there! So... okay, _wow. _Here goes another one that got completely out of hand, length-wise.**

* * *

**16\. Missing**

* * *

"...Hey."

One day, Blake might get the hang of opening these sorts of conversations.

Weiss raised an eyebrow at her. "Yes?"

"How are you doing?"

Today was not that day.

Weiss took a moment to answer. She stared off into the woods to their right—the Emerald forest was coming into full bloom, with new leaves rustling in a cool breeze and flowers poking out from between thick brambles in the underbrush. Then, "I'm honestly not sure."

Blake nodded, wracking her brain for some way to respond to that. The conversation was made even more awkward by the fact that she was riding on Pit's back while Weiss walked, so they had to crane their necks to look at one another. No way around it, though. Crutches and gnarled tree roots did not mix well.

"I'm relieved, obviously." Weiss was still staring off to the side of the path, and it occurred to Blake that she might prefer not making eye-contact for this. "I'd thought... well. But now..."

"I don't think Ilia would lie. Not about that."

"No, she has no motive. She'd only confuse negotiations, make it impossible for them to get what they want out of the ransom." A pause. "Unless—"

"I believe her."

"So do I." Weiss gave her an odd look. "How exactly _do _you know her, anyway? You were in the White Fang together, but it seems a bit more... personal than that."

"She was a friend." Now it was Blake's turn to study the scenery. "I thought about asking her to come with me when I left, but I just... I couldn't do it. She was close with him, too, and I thought she might... not to hurt me, or anything like that. But she might have thought she could talk him around."

"The important thing is that the two of you got out." Weiss smiled and patted Pit's neck. "Besides, this might be your second chance, if she keeps coming around to see Brand." The smile faded. "Though, if she saw me..."

"She'll come back for Brand." Ilia had helped her clean him up after raids, sometimes. She always apologized every time the alcohol wipes stung him and he flinched. "And I... I'd like to think she'd want to know why I left."

"Would she hurt you?"

"No. She might yell at me, but I probably deserve it."

"Nonsense."

She cracked a small smile at that. "Agree to disagree." Then her eyes narrowed. "And you changed the subject."

"...Perhaps."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I just hope you'll tell someone, because... let's just say I know from experience that being an island to your own doesn't turn out well."

"It's fine. And I _am_ relieved. Just... not completely. Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit, he's not stupid, but... he's never been away from the manor alone before."

"He has Glacier with him."

"Yes." Weiss put a hand on Specter's shoulder. "But it's not..." She stopped, frustrated. "It's like if you were stranded in the wilderness with Brand. No... more like if Sun was stranded in the wilderness with Brand."

"But... he's your father's dragon. He knows Whitley."

"I'm not so sure he does. He's seen him a few times, they do live in the same manor, but as far as I know Whitley doesn't visit him." She ran a hand through her hair. "And even if he _did..._ I used to sneak into the barn to see Glacier, and it's just... he can be temperamental, that's all." Her mouth twisted into a scowl. "He's not being taken care of properly. I didn't realize before I came to Beacon, but... he isn't around people enough."

"Oh."

"Hence, partly relieved." Weiss folded her arms and shrugged, though Blake could see the tension in her shoulders. "Still better than before, at least."

"Have you talked to anyone about it? Your sister?"

"I'm trying to figure out how. If I blurt out the full story she's going to guess that I know someone with ties to the White Fang."

Blake grimaced. "Avoiding that would be good."

"Right now I'm leaning towards telling her my source is classified." Weiss grinned a little at that. "For her reaction, if nothing else."

The cave entrance came into view in front of them. Blake slid off Pit's back, with both him and Weiss helping her keep her balance. Then, when they were properly face to face again, "I just want you to know... I'm around if you need to talk."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "This is now the ninth version of that speech I've heard."

"Oh."

"Two of them from you."

"Right. Sorry."

"Don't be. I appreciate it, even if taking people up on it is... still a work in progress."

Blake smiled. "Progress is good."

"It goes both ways, too. If you want to talk about anything."

"Right. Thank you."

She limped towards the cave, eager to move on from the moment. As she passed through the entrance, she relaxed slightly. No Hazel. He was always polite whenever they crossed paths, so much so that it was a little unnerving, but she still preferred to—

Hazel was inside the cave. Not just inside but at the back, sitting right next to Brand. The chain was coiled in his lap. He'd trapped one link between his fingers, and the scrape of a file made her ears pin back against her head. There was a small notch in the metal.

"Evening," he said, not looking up.

Weiss glanced at Blake. "Is this...?"

"Yes."

She didn't want to try her luck walking as close to Brand as Hazel was sitting—not with Weiss, and not when they'd all be crowding him. Instead she picked a spot by the wall, closer than they usually were but not by all that much. He eyed her as she moved, then snorted approval.

"Don't move your head, please," Hazel said, as the chain slipped from between his hands. Brand huffed and lay down so that the man had to lean forward at an uncomfortable angle to keep working.

They all sat in silence for a while. This time it was Blake who broke it. "You work with the White Fang."

Hazel shot her a wary look. "Yes."

"I saw someone yesterday. Ilia. Is she—"

"Let's get something straight." He shifted so that the chain was propped up on one of his knees and kept filing. "This is neutral ground. Not somewhere you can dig for information."

"That's not what I meant."

"Maybe not. But I'd rather we didn't talk shop, if that's all the same to you." He slipped the file into his pocket and stood up. "I should be going, anyway."

Brand made an unhappy noise and snapped at his heels. Hazel didn't flinch. He just bent down and touched the dragon's brow lightly with two fingers, then left the cave.

There was a long silence. Finally, Blake couldn't take it anymore and asked, "Have you seen Ilia since...?"

Brand lifted a wing to glare at her. "Nno."

"Oh." She fiddled with her hands in her lap. "I hope she... I've been wanting to talk to her."

His wings flared. Blake jumped, startled, and climbed gingerly to her feet with one hand on the wall for balance. "No!" he roared. "Nno 'awk!" Behind her, Weiss grabbed her forearm.

"Okay," she said carefully. "Okay. Why don't you want me to talk to her?"

He hissed, rearing up so that his horns scraped the roof of the cave.

"Talk to me, Brand. Help me understand."

"Wuh... want Lah. Suh-tay."

"You... want Ilia to stay." Blake glanced at Weiss, but she just shrugged helplessly. "Why does that mean you don't want me to talk to her?"

"Truh... ay... turr."

It took several tries to swallow. "Brand... I'd never want to keep her away from you."

"Lake go 'way. Tuh... tell Lah..."

"No. Even if she'd left the White Fang, that's not the same as leaving you. I still come to see you, don't I?"

Brand hissed. "Truh—truh—!"

"Brand, I _had _to go. I couldn't do it anymore..."

He let out a loud, haunting cry that pinned her ears to her skull. "Ad... Lone!"

"I know."

"Wuh... Wuh..."

"...Why?"

His eyes bore into her, unblinking.

"Because what he was doing was hurting people. It was hurting dragons. And... it was hurting me and you."

"No!" He roared again, and this time there was smoke. "Lie! Lie!" His tail cracked against the wall of the cave, and a shower of broken rock cascaded down from the impact.

"Blake?" Weiss touched her shoulder. "Maybe you should—"

"Look at the _chain!" _What kind of—"

_"No!"_ Fire washed over the floor of the cave. She tried to jump back, landed on her bad leg, and ended up sprawled on the ground. He didn't attack her—instead he twisted around and grabbed the chain in his jaws, spitting great gouts of flame as he tried to tear it from the wall. As he struggled his tail whipped behind him, passing dangerously close over Weiss' head.

Pit and Specter both squeezed in through the main entrance where they'd been waiting, whistling and rumbling in alarm. But Brand soon burned himself out—his struggles with the chain turned to dull, repetitive tugs until he finally sat back on his haunches, breathing hard. Exhausted.

"Go 'way," he said, hiding behind one wing.

"Brand..." He curled in on himself, his back to her. "I know you loved him." A shiver, running from the tip of his tail up the curve of his spine. "So... so did I. But that doesn't make what he did okay."

A small, thin whine. Then nothing.

She dragged herself closer and, for the first time since before she'd run away, placed a hand on his back. Blake was sure he'd shrug her off and tell her to leave. He just curled up tighter, like he was trying to fold himself up until he disappeared. She moved her hand in soothing circles.

There was a shuffling from behind her as Weiss knelt down on one side. Wisely, she didn't try to touch Brand. Instead she started to hum softly. Blake had never heard the tune before—a flood of notes that rolled out like a waterfall.

"I'm sorry." She was starting to think he was right about her—coward, traitor. Adam and the White Fang hadn't deserved her loyalty... but she'd failed just about everyone who had.

Brand whined again, shivering under her hand. She patted his flank and shook her head. Maybe she hadn't done everything right... but she'd saved Pit. And it wasn't over, either—there had always been wrongs she wanted to set right. The only difference was that now, some of them were her own.

* * *

_If I were an infant dragon,_ thought Ilia, _where would I go?_

Searching was difficult. For one thing, they didn't even have a name to call out. For another... she was bonded to Sienna. Ilia couldn't help but think there must have been a person involved. One of the Fang who thought they deserved a dragon more? A human, trying to disrupt their operations? Hazel, taking their latest success for his boss?

Too many possibilities.

They spread out. The laboratory was left with only a skeleton crew, with everyone else either combing the woods or searching the camp. Ilia skirted around Sienna's tent, hoping she could find some sign... but there was nothing.

Think. If it had been another member of the White Fang... what would be the point? They couldn't possibly hide her for long. A human, then, or at least an outsider. Someone who knew where the camp was.

_Hazel._

She curled both hands into fists. That didn't make much sense either, he would have to know they'd catch him. But she made a beeline for the tent he stayed in when he was around, signaling for Justice to be quiet. He hunched over as he walked—was he trying to be stealthy? They needed to work on that at some point.

Ilia glanced around. No one. She peeled back the flap to his tent and slipped inside, pausing only to whisper an order to Justice to stay outside and warn her if Hazel came back. The inside of the tent was dim and sparsely furnished. The only decoration she could see was an ink drawing of a dragon that had been left on his desk.

"Hatchling?" she whispered. "It's me. Ilia. Make noise if you're there."

No response, but that didn't surprise her. She doubted the hatchling would have understood any of that, and he could easily have muzzled her somehow. Still, she couldn't see any boxes big enough to hide a—

Somewhere outside, she heard a thump.

"Justice?" Ilia ran back outside. "Are you okay?"

He was staring off in the direction the sound had come from, his head tilted to one side. "Gud," he said. "Luh... Low-duh."

Ilia followed his gaze, trying to think of where it might have come from—_there. _A storage tent, pitched right next to Hazel's. Had he hidden her in there, so that if someone found her he wouldn't be blamed? No, that didn't make any sense, surely he would have known someone would find her if... if...

Actually... had anyone checked in there? Probably a cursory look, but if she was locked in a crate...

Ilia circled around to the back of the tent. The flap was closed. She ripped it open and stepped inside, her heart hammering. Would he be in here? She hadn't seen him go out with the search party, what if he—

She froze. So did the dragonet—a strip of jerky was hanging halfway out of her mouth. They stared at one another. Slowly, the hatchling started to chew.

"You..." Ilia couldn't get the words out. She just _stared, _incredulous, at the destruction the tiny devil had wrought. The thump she'd heard had probably been the heap of crates—once neatly stacked, now scattered across the floor. Three had broken, their contents strewn everywhere. Every sack or box that had been within easy reach was also torn or pried open. Fruits and vegetables, bits of salted meat, grain... all dried out until they wrinkled, cracked, or crumbled. The rabbit Perry had caught in a trap that morning was nothing but bones and scraps of paper-dry skin.

The instant she spoke, everything unfroze. The dragonet shoved the rest of the jerky into her mouth and bolted for the exit—which happened to be behind Ilia.

"No you don't!" She made a grab for the hatchling, but she just slipped between Ilia's legs—only to come to a skidding halt when Justice's head filled the tent's entrance. She squeaked, turned on a dime, and dove into a heap of sacks. In her panic she punctured two of them. Clouds of flour filled the air.

Ilia darted around to the other side just as the hatchling was wriggling free. She just barely managed to snatch her up by the tail. There was an indignant squeal as the dragonet twisted in her grip, latching onto her hand with tiny, needle-sharp claws. Ilia swore and tried to grab for her head, but it was much too late for that. Teeth sank into her wrist, and she could feel her skin cracking wherever the little gremlin touched her.

Justice roared and tried to force his way into the tent. "No!" Ilia said hurriedly—he would _definitely _bring the whole thing down on their heads. "Get Sienna! Find—ah!" The hatchling scratched the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, startling her so badly she let go of her tail. Just like that she was gone, shooting between two crates.

"Damn it!" Ilia pressed her face to the opening, trying to see where she'd gone.

It didn't take long to realize that had been a bad idea. She jerked back, swearing and holding a hand over her eyes. By the time she blinked a little moisture back, and _then _wiped away the tears so that she could finally see again, she had no idea where the hatchling was. She pushed the crates apart, but there was nothing between them now.

More crates. All of them were shoved aside, one of them upending and sending cans of soup rolling across the floor. Ilia noticed for the first time that almost everything the dragonet had gotten into had been close to fresh—nothing canned, only a few grains, as if she'd started by poking holes in sacks at random and then learned to hunt through them by smell.

_Great,_ she thought. _We created a really excellent thief._

Eventually, Ilia made her way to the last pair of crates. "I know you're there," she growled. "Come out. Now."

Nothing.

She heaved one out of the way and stood poised to make another grab. There was no dragonet—only a small hole torn in the canvas wall.

Ilia stared at it for a moment. Then she tore out of the tent, skidding to a stop as she looked around. There—no, that was a squirrel. Yellow, yellow, she just needed to see a flash of yellow... but there was nothing.

Sienna found her standing outside their food stores, turning in slow circles, still unwilling to accept that the hatchling had gone.

"What happened? Justice was howling."

Ilia swallowed. "Well... I found her." She held up her hand. "It... doesn't look like she wants to come back."

Sienna didn't speak for a long moment. She walked towards the storage tent, peered inside. Assessed the damage. Turned back to Ilia.

"Get that bandaged."

"Sienna—"

"Go. Now. I will deal with this... mess."

With that she strode into the tent. No one bothered her until she came back out. If anyone besides Ilia noticed that they both had red and slightly puffy eyes, they didn't dare mention it.

* * *

"...think you'll really like this street, they set it up so all the shops are dragon friendly and there's this park where we could bring Jade and Storm—I mean, we'd have to do it later since they're back at Beacon right now, but we could! And I know it's probably super different from Haven, or I guess I don't know, I was only there for the Festival and most of that was right around the school, so..."

Ruby paused for breath, then grinned nervously. "Um... you can just bop me on the head if you want me to stop. It's what Yang does."

"Why would I do that? It's cute."

Emerald watched in mild amusement as Ruby flapped her hands a few times before stuffing them into her pockets. Weird, to be saying all these things and actually _feeling _them.

A little bit. She was fun to fluster, and maybe the babbling was kind of endearing. Just a small, manageable thing. Emerald wouldn't let it get in the way.

They turned a corner. Supposedly they were here because Emerald had never been to Vale before, but she suspected Yang probably had ulterior motives for suggesting it. Mercury _definitely _had ulterior motives for supporting the idea.

It was nice enough. The weather had improved over the past week or so, which meant they were walking through streets that were clean of snow, with shafts of sunlight reflecting off store windows full of dragon-friendly products. This was the kind of clean, friendly neighborhood that always had a way of making Emerald feel like an impostor.

"Ooh!" Ruby pointed through one window, where a selection of knitted scarves long enough to abseil with were displayed. "I bet those are on clearance!"

A small smile crooked at the corner of Emerald's mouth. Unwelcome. "What's Storm going to do with a winter scarf in spring?"

"I was thinking maybe I could get one for her and one for Pit, and give it to them next year. I'd have to find something for Fang and Specter, too. Um..." Ruby glanced around the street. "I guess there's always chew toys for Fang, and Specter really likes flavored ice."

"You're already planning Yule presents for your team's dragons?"

"Well..." Ruby gestured wildly at the scarves. "They look cool!"

Emerald shrugged. "Suit yourself." She tilted her head back to scan the shop fronts. Remembered the way lights spilled from inside at night, pooling on the ground in neat squares, cutting up the shadows between streetlights. That wonderful, glowing world, always out of reach. Until a hand came down...

"I'm sorry."

She came back to herself with a small start. "What?"

"I mean, um... after your teammates... I shouldn't have talked about, um... and now I'm realizing bringing it up probably just makes it _worse, _and—"

"It's fine. We weren't that close, honestly."

"Oh."

There was a question she wanted to ask, lodged in her throat. She'd pushed too far, too fast with Rivers—and how could she even _think _of that now? How could she compare this to her _failure _at Haven, when Cinder didn't need this girl?

Cinder had saved her. The plan was what mattered, not whether or not she could turn one student. One _irritating—_

"Hey." Ruby poked her shoulder. "Are you, um..." She stopped, put a palm to her face. Started again, muffled this time, "Sorry. Yang's way better at this than me." Her hand dropped. "Do you want to talk about it, or go do something fun and distracting?"

Emerald steeled herself and asked, "Do you think they were right?"

"Huh?"

"My teammates."

"Oh." Ruby rubbed her arms, as if suddenly cold. "Um... I don't really know. The woman on the news seems... scary."

Emerald bit back a retort. "But?"

"The council are... not good. Really not good."

Hard not to laugh at that. Not the good kind of laughter, either.

"You think so?"

Ruby's brow furrowed. Emerald hoped she hadn't sounded as sarcastic as she felt. "What they did to Tornado was wrong. People keep telling us we should wait until we're older to do something about it, but I became a rider because I wanted to help people. I mean, there's all this bad stuff in the world that we can't fix. But... even if I can't fix _everything,_ I want to be a rider so I can fix some things. Leave the world a little better than I found it."

"Is that a yes, then?"

Ruby winced.

Had Emerald put herself too much in the role of devil's advocate? She'd been hoping to goad Ruby into arguing her side for her, then cave and agree, but if she seemed _upset _by her teammates leaving then she might try to make her feel better, and—

"Kind of?" Ruby rubbed the back of her head. "I think I agree with them on what should happen, but... there are a lot of people that have good causes that I agree with on paper. And some of them just did something that really hurt someone I care about. So... I don't like the council. But I'm not sure I can trust someone who keeps stealing eggs, either."

Emerald nodded slowly, even as it felt like her stomach was boiling. "So you don't want things to change if that means violence." _Won't get your hands dirty._

"That's not what I meant." Ruby frowned, and for a moment something twisted in Emerald's chest—always the same mistake, too far too fast—but she was only trying to articulate what she wanted to say. "I want... I want them to just _stop._ Build places where dragons that can't fight can retire, have scientists designing stuff to help them work around disabilities, that kind of thing."

It was impossible to suppress the derisive snort. "Whatever world you're living in sounds a lot nicer than the real one."

"I know it won't happen like _that." _Ruby crossed her arms. "But just because it's _harder _to change things without hurting people doesn't mean there's no point in trying. There are a lot of people who say that violence is necessary. And sometimes they don't mean, 'I've tried everything else, and thought about it a lot, and decided the harm I'm doing now is worth the change I can make happen later.' They just mean that it's easier."

Emerald opened her mouth, but no response was forthcoming.

"So... I don't think your teammates did the wrong thing. A lot of students at Haven probably didn't have a choice, if their dragons would have been culled. I just... even if I'm never going to get that perfect fix, where the council stop what they're doing and change their ways... I need to know I at least tried. If that makes sense?"

Emerald closed her mouth.

"But... I feel like you were asking less about whether your teammates made the right choice, and more about what you should do. Which, um... I mean, I'm not the boss of you or anything." Ruby grinned nervously. "Just, if you wanted advice or anything, I think... there might be a lot wrong with what those people are doing. They kinda set my neighbor's broodery on fire."

_Shit!_

"But they haven't done anything that comes close to what the council did to Tornado, and... doing nothing feels like it's saying that the way things are now is okay, and it's not. I know it's scary, and it can feel like anything we do might just make things _worse, _but..." A small, lopsided grin. "I'd rather regret trying than giving up. Hopefully that helps?"

A pause. A horrified look slowly dawned on Ruby's face. _"Wow _I've been talking for a long time, I was serious when I said you could just tap me when I do that. And I—I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to—!"

"No, it's fine." Emerald blinked back to life. "Just... processing."

Ruby made a small, agonized noise.

Emerald forced herself to smile. "I think you're right. About trying instead of giving up."

"Oh." Ruby sagged with obvious relief. "That's good! I was starting to—" and she clapped a hand over her own mouth.

"What?"

"...Sorry. Again. I swear I'm not usually _this _bad, I just—"

"You really don't have to apologize." The smile wasn't forced, now. It had taken on a life of its own. "I'm the one who brought it up. Maybe we could go back to window-shopping for a bit, to lighten the mood?"

"Yes, please!"

Ruby got ahead of her in her excitement—or maybe nervousness. Emerald hung back a little, watching the red cape flapping at her heels, choking on a warm feeling that wasn't supposed to belong to someone like that. Someone so irritatingly naive and childish and...

...Someone else.

She squeezed her eyes shut and remembered the hand that had reached for her, remembered searing eyes, remembered what she needed to do here. There wasn't room for complications.

Ruby turned around and jumped up and down, pointing to something in a shop window.

Too late. Emerald jogged to catch up, keeping her smile in place as her heart sank. It didn't matter that it wasn't part of the plan. She _needed _to turn this one to their cause.

* * *

Whitley's toes scraped against the ground as he kicked and squirmed. Then they left it altogether, flailing uselessly in midair as he was hauled upwards by the hood of Rusty's jacket.

"Glacier! Stop it!"

The dragon ignored him. He must have understood that—Father had definitely taught him the _stop _command.

Whitley was eye-level with the first branches of the tree, now. It was massive, several feet around at the base of its trunk. He dared to look down and shouted, "No! Down!" The forest floor had slipped away, and his bare feet were dangling at least fifteen feet off the ground. Glacier had stretched his neck up as far as it would go. The tree's lowest branch was even with Whitley's stomach.

Slowly, carefully, Glacier draped him over the branch. He yelped, swore, and clawed at the bark trying to get a hold as the dragon let go. Driven by some panicked instinct, he hooked one leg over the branch so that he was straddling it.

"Glacier," he said, not daring to look at the ground. "Get me down. Now."

Footsteps.

"Glacier!" Whitley twisted around to look, then froze when he slipped slightly. A wave of nausea washed over him. He waited for it to pass, breathing hard, trying not to lose his... well. He wouldn't call it a lunch. Glacier had killed a deer and, obviously very pleased with himself, dropped one of its legs—completely raw—into Whitley's lap. He'd taken a bite, forced himself to swallow. Taken another, spat it out. After that, he'd given up.

When he finally recovered enough to look around, Glacier was gone.

_"Useless _lizard!"

He'd come back. Probably. The dragon had put him down before he went hunting for the deer, though that time he'd just dropped him in a clearing and wandered away. Whitley, not realizing what was going on, had tried to follow and gotten lost. Glacier eventually found him, blew a puff of cold air into his face, and returned him to his back.

Whitley sighed and leaned back against the tree trunk, squinting against the sun. At least it was getting warmer. He could almost feel his toes, now. That could change the moment it rained, though, and there was a cloud to the east that looked—

Not a cloud. Smoke.

He startled so badly he almost fell out of the tree. Bringing up a hand to shade his eyes, he could just make out a wisp of grey against the blue sky. Probably too small to be a forest fire... campers? No... there were others, smaller, fanning out behind the first. A _town?!_

Whitley looked at the ground, and had to cling to the tree through another wave of dizziness. Still very far away. He glanced towards the smoke. If it _was _a town... they would have scrolls. He could call Father and be back at the manor by nightfall.

If it _wasn't _a town... he could only think of one other reason there would be that many fires in one place. A _large _campsite. The kind the White Fang might have if they had chased him and Glacier into the woods.

He doubted he could convince Glacier to go that way. But if he made it home, he could tell people where the dragon was and have them collect him. It came down to the question of whether or not the people there were the sort who would help him.

Did it matter? He had no food, no shoes—they'd fallen off of Glacier while Whitley was sleeping. The first rainfall would kill him, if starvation didn't do the job first. This could be his only chance.

He looked down again. There was a bush growing near the foot of the tree. If he lowered himself down...

Whitley squeezed his eyes shut. _Think, _he told himself. _At worst, you break an ankle. You could still get to the smoke. _Fifteen feet, or close to it. Minus another seven or eight feet, if he hung from his hands. Seven feet. Plus he'd be landing on something soft. Ish.

"I hate this place." He swung his leg back over the branch. Gripped it hard in both hands. And slid.

There was a painful jerk in his shoulders. His hands were torn from the branch. For an instant he was frozen, suspended. Then he was on his back, his legs tangled in the bush, brambles digging into his bare feet, staring up at the sky.

"Hate," he mumbled, but he didn't have the energy to finish the sentence.

It took what felt like hours to reach the smoke. He limped the whole way—he didn't _think _he'd broken anything since he could still walk, but his knees were sore and he kept stepping wrong on tree roots and rocks. The closer he got, the more his hands shook. If they were the White Fang...

He kept to the thickest undergrowth as best he could, drawing closer at an angle, moving agonizingly slowly. Then, through a break in the trees, he saw buildings. A wave of relief. This was a permanent settlement, so surely—

A woman walked out of the building he was observing. There was a pair of rounded black ears poking out from under her hair. Whitley ducked behind the nearest tree and clung to it, his heart beating in his throat.

He chanced a peek. She was carrying a basket of flowers. No weapons.

Whitley glanced back towards the forest. He could just leave... and die of starvation or exposure. Gritting his teeth, he flipped Rusty's hood over his face. His hair, he was sure, was already a tangled mess, and possibly dirty enough that it didn't look white anymore. Enough, maybe, that they wouldn't recognize him if they weren't looking for him. And, as he watched, he could see that some of the villagers were human.

By some luck he would have called awful a week ago—though by this point it was pretty much standard—the first person who noticed him was a young man with a horse's tail. Flowers were braided into it, as well as his hair. He tilted his head to one side, obviously bewildered.

"Uh, can I help you?"

Whitley glanced at the forest, tugging his hood a little further over his head. Could the man see his hair? "I need to use your scroll."

Hesitation. "Um... look, kid, I'd be happy to, but I don't actually have one."

"What?"

"Old man Otto has one for emergencies, but he's out fishing."

"You have one scroll. In the entire town."

The man scowled. "Yeah. We live out here because we're not helpless without an umbilical cord to the big city like—"

Behind him, someone coughed pointedly. It was the woman from earlier, still holding the basket of flowers braced on one hip. "Colt. I think he's _asking _because he needs some help."

Colt blinked, then glanced at Whitley's bare feet. "Oh."

"Where are your parents, hon?"

_Hon? _Whitley grimaced, but otherwise let it slide without comment. "They live in Mantle," he lied.

Both faunus shared an incredulous look. "How did you even...?" Colt trailed off.

Whitley knew asking would make them even more suspicious, but he needed to know. "Where am I, exactly? What kingdom?"

Another glance between the two, even more alarmed.

"This is Vale, sweetie," the woman said slowly, like he was a frightened deer. "I'm guessing you got lost?"

"Yes." For a very warped definition of _lost._

"Alright... It's going to be okay." She smiled and stuck out a hand. "I'm Basi."

Whitley didn't take it.

To her credit, she recovered well. "Otto should be back in a few hours. I don't think he'd mind if I broke in, but he keeps the scroll in a strongbox and I don't have the key."

_Damn it._ "I need it now." Whitley glanced towards the forest. He thought he saw a shadow moving and jumped, but there was nothing there.

Colt noticed. "Hey, kid, is somebody after you?"

"No." Too quick. _Stupid. _He was usually better at this.

"How about you stay in my living room while we wait?" Basi suggested.

"No." Whitley shook his head and backed up a step. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He was sure he could see something moving in the woods, now. If the White Fang came he'd be caught between them and the village. He should have stayed in the tree, he should have stayed in the manor, everything kept going wrong...

"We can keep you safer—"

"No!"

And as he shouted, a furious shriek echoed him. A tree shook, cracked, and toppled. Glacier bounded out from behind it, his wings flared and his lips peeled back to show those dagger teeth.

Whitley remembered this. People with guns, confusion, shouting... then limp forms on the ground. Glacier licking his wounds.

"Stop!" He held out his hands. Glacier kept running, deep blue eyes narrowed, staring at the two villagers with murderous intent.

_My fault, my fault, stupid stupid stupid—_

Whitley jumped in the dragon's path, squeezed his eyes shut. Waited for an impact that didn't come.

When he dared peek, he found himself staring into one pupil—it was blown wide, dark and fathomless. Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Whitley reached out... and gently laid a hand on the dragon's brow. Glacier's eyes slid halfway closed, though they were still trained on the two faunus behind him.

Whitley couldn't help marveling at what he'd just stopped. Several tons of muscle and hard scales and sharp spines. The kind of strength that had ripped through a fully grown tree without a second glance. And yet... Glacier had listened to him. A strange tingling went from his fingertips to the back of his neck, like being injected with static electricity. Powerful.

A noise from behind him. He half-turned his head. Colt had fallen on his rump and was gaping at them both. Basi's basket was on the ground, the flowers scattered, one hand curled against her chest as if to still her heart.

"You're..." she breathed. They hadn't recognized Whitley... but _no one _could mistake Glacier.

_Well, _he thought wryly, _if the White Fang weren't on their way, they will be now._

"Boots," he said. "Socks, too. Camping gear... matches, water, a blanket. Things like that. Food, if you have anything nonperishable."

Colt was the first to catch on. "Uh... we, well..."

Whitley patted Glacier's head. "We wouldn't want this one to get out of hand, after all."

More villagers had noticed the commotion. Whitley repeated his demands, louder this time. Glacier tensed when some of them tried to approach, flared his wings again. They retreated. Colt scrambled away, crab-like, and hit his head on the wall of a nearby cottage.

"I need to use the scroll."

Basi paled. "We really can't get to it right now—"

"Fine." Whitley backed up a few steps. "Fine. I want to be gone soon." Judging by the looks on their faces, they couldn't agree more.

By the time Whitley left, a little more than half an hour later, Otto was still out fishing. He wondered with detached amusement what would happen when he got back. Would he would think the whole village was playing a joke on him?

Whitley hitched his new backpack over his shoulders and clambered up onto Glacier's back, his toes pleasantly warm in his new boots and thick woolen socks.


	17. Red-Eye

**Hello again! I come bearing a dragon playground and a couple of misbehaving children!**

* * *

**17\. Red-Eye**

* * *

Nymph toyed absentmindedly with a bit of rope. On the other end, Ao Guang tugged frantically, bouncing around from side-to-side. Her tail was twitching as she thought. This was somewhat difficult, since Nimbus kept trying to pounce on it.

The weather had gotten warmer, something that made everyone except Specter excited and eager to roam around outside, so their riders had decided to take a trip into Vale. Instead of roaming around the dragon-friendly stores, since even they might have trouble handling twelve at once, they had picked a playground nearby.

Most of the property was devoted to a wide open field, with toys scattered around—like rubber tires covered in bite marks, or the rope Nymph was playing tug of war with. There were also mud pits, though Twiggy said they weren't quite as nice as the ones by the earth stables, and a sandy arena where Huo and Fang were wrestling. On the other side of a chain-link fence there was another field, though that one was scattered with toys for small humans instead of dragons.

Nymph dropped the rope long enough to make a grab for Nimbus' tail. He pulled it out of the way and rolled onto his back, one wing splayed out over the grass. She made another half-hearted attempt that he dodged easily. It was hard to concentrate on the game. She was too busy chewing over her linguistic problem, and getting progressively more and more frustrated.

The _really _irritating part? Nothing else was harder to say.

"Lurr," Nymph said. Nimbus cocked his head at her, then tried to pounce on her tail. He overshot it, and the pair of them went down in a tangled heap. She snapped playfully at his shoulder, then found her feet and trotted off towards her rider. It felt like time to try again.

Unfortunately, Sun and Yang had both separated from the main group to referee the scuffle between Fang and Huo. So Nymph sat near Neptune, watching him watch them.

"Lurr... Zzuh."

Neptune stared at her. "Uh... lizard?"

Nymph huffed. "Nno."

Nothing else was harder to say. Not because of pronunciation—or, not exactly. There was a sound in the middle of the word that she just couldn't get her tongue around, which was part of the problem. But there were lots of words that were hard to say, like Sage. Usually, though, their riders were good at guessing what the missing sounds were. She could say, 'Ssah' and knew that she'd be understood.

So when she couldn't pronounce a word perfectly, and her rider was stubbornly pretending that word didn't _exist..._ She snorted and glanced around. Maybe she could try to get one of the others to understand? Sage and Scarlet might figure it out.

"Sorry, girl." Neptune patted her neck. "I feel like I'm missing something obvious here."

Nymph glared at him. Then she looked very pointedly at Sun, and back to him. "Luh... Lurr..."

Still nothing. She tried to flick her tail in irritation, but it didn't move. Slowly, she craned her neck around. Nimbus had it trapped between both paws, his head tilted to one side, winking at her.

Nymph shot a last glance at Neptune, who still looked puzzled, and decided... it could wait for another day. She chased Nimbus around the perimeter of the park as Scarlet and Neptune both whooped and cheered them on. As she ran she leaped over Titan, who was relaxing next to Twiggy and watching the other section of the park with interest. Nimbus glanced over his shoulder, saw her gaining on him, and darted across the field towards Zircon.

Their brother looked up when he heard footsteps. He glanced from Nimbus, to Nymph, then back again. Sat very still. Then, just as Nimbus passed him, he pounced, bringing both of them down together. While they were all tangled up, Nymph placed a paw on each of their tails and wagged her own.

Victory was sweet.

* * *

They drifted back to Beacon piecemeal. RWBY went first—apparently Blake wanted to visit Brand before it got too dark. Eventually it was just team JNPR left in the park, watching Ao Guang goad Titan onto a massive slide. There was a sharp metallic squeal as he slid a few inches with his claws digging in. Then he went the rest of the way, scrabbling frantically with his front paws, until he finally fell to the ground with a hefty thump.

Pyrrha smiled. She hoped they could come back here sometime soon—especially when Titan started eyeing the slide as if he was considering going again. "Sorry," she said, walking up to him and touching his shoulder, "but we should probably go back."

Even Guang looked a little tired as they left, though he still found the energy to run a few laps around Ren and Nora. Pyrrha was more concerned about Twiggy—she was better than she had been right after the incident in flying class last week, but she was still limping slightly, and one wing had been fitted with a gigantic canvas sling.

"Is she alright?" she asked Jaune, as they crossed the street.

"Yeah." He patted her nose. "Oobleck says dragons heal from pulled muscles and stuff like that a lot better than we do. As long as she takes it easy, she should be fine pretty soon."

Twiggy purred and stretched, wiggling her injured wing gingerly back and forth. Jaune gave her a light poke. "Hey. Remember the taking it easy part, okay?"

Pyrrha giggled. They stopped on the street corner, waiting until the lights changed. A family of three was crossing the other way, two fathers and a little girl who looked about six.

"I hope she's feeling better."

Twiggy nodded and rolled her shoulder again. "Ssore." Jaune rubbed at her chest, where the pulled muscle was, and her eyes slid halfway closed. "Gud."

Pyrrha was so absorbed watching the sweet interaction, she almost didn't notice. The family had reached the same corner they were waiting on, standing a respectful distance from the dragons—until the little girl broke away.

It took only a second for Pyrrha to turn around and realize what was going on, but by then the little girl had already crossed the distance between them. She reached out for Titan's tail and _yanked._ His head snapped around, his ears back, his body twisting until he and the child were nose to nose.

The shouts of Pyrrha and the girl's parents mingled together as Titan opened his mouth... and licked her face.

There was a moment of startled silence. Then the little girl started giggling.

"I am _so _sorry!" The taller of the two men approached and gestured to his daughter. "Cam, come here."

"It's alright!" Pyrrha put both hands by Titan's head, trying to push him away as he sniffed curiously at Cam. She stared back, reached out—

"Cam!" The shorter man tried to scoop her up, but she squirmed out of the way and grabbed one of Titan's horns. He lowered his head even further. She pulled hard. For a moment she scrabbled at the side of his face with tiny pink sneakers, trying to climb up but finding no purchase.

Slowly, Titan raised his head until she was hanging a few inches off the ground.

"Titan!" Pyrrha put a hand over his head to keep him from raising it any further, but he didn't try. He just moved it to the side, gently swinging the little girl over towards his back. Then he looked at her parents, blinking innocently while Cam shrieked in excitement and swung her legs back and forth.

"Um." Pyrrha glanced at the two men. "I think he wants to give her a ride."

They stared at her. Then at each other. Then at Titan, who was starting to tilt his head at an odd angle as Cam's weight twisted it around. "Yes!" she cheered. "Please?"

Both fathers shared a look—one bemused, the other anxious. "Is it safe?" the taller one asked.

Pyrrha glanced at Jaune, who gave her a small, encouraging grin. That was no help at all—what if she said yes and something went wrong? She remembered...

But Titan was purring quietly, even as one of Cam's flailing feet whacked his shoulder.

"Titan is very friendly," she said, smiling. "But it's up to you."

Cam let out a premature squeal of delight. The shorter man gave his partner a final glance, as if to check that this was alright. Received a nod. "Alright." He stepped forward as Titan lifted Cam up onto his back, holding his hands under her feet so that he could catch her if she slipped. Once she was settled, Titan brought his head back down and offered it to the man.

"Oh." He glanced at Pyrrha. "Is that... could he carry all of us?"

Pyrrha looked to Titan, who nodded eagerly. "While walking, yes."

It turned out the men—who introduced themselves as Earl, the shorter one, and Chai, the taller of the two—were heading in roughly the same direction as Beacon. The two of them sat on either side of Cam as she bounced in place and pointed at things, occasionally petting Titan's back. The whole family was a source of curiosity for the other dragons, who took turns investigating them. Earl took a liking to Twiggy, who let him scratch behind her ears as they walked.

By the time they reached the house where the family lived, Earl was hanging onto Cam's legs to keep her from trying to spur Titan onward like a horse. He didn't seem to mind—Pyrrha wasn't sure he could even feel it through his scales—but it still seemed prudent to put a stop to it.

"Here we are," Chai announced. Then he looked down. "Er..."

Titan offered his head, letting the man cling to him as he slid to the ground. Soon after, they hit a snag.

"No!" Cam clung to Titan's back. "I don't wanna go!"

"Easy, sweetheart." Earl scooped her up and passed her to Chai. She started crying inconsolably.

Twiggy whimpered and licked the girl's face. Freya purred soothingly. Ao Guang jumped up and down, then rolled over onto his back with his tongue hanging out. Cam stopped for a moment, startled. Hiccuped once. Then she began to wail even louder.

Titan fretted, pacing back and forth and nudging her lightly with his snout. Earl just sighed and scooped her up onto his shoulder. "C'mon," he said, smiling. "The dragons have to go back to school now."

"But..."

It took several minutes to coax Cam into the house. Titan spent the whole walk back to Beacon craning his head to look over his shoulder, warbling sadly, his tail drooping. Pyrrha was torn between feeling bad for him and wanting to smile. "It's alright. We'll go back to the park another time, and maybe we'll run into them again." He perked up a little at that.

Maybe he noticed Pyrrha's watery smile. He cocked his head to one side and hummed curiously.

"Nothing," she said, scratching under his chin. "You're just grand."

* * *

He smelled like damp loam, like mud and clay and the air right before a rainstorm.

Justice found him in his usual spot, in the pen behind the Albains' tent that had been built for him. Harbinger poked his head out, touching Justice's nose in greeting. Then it drooped until it was nearly touching the ground.

"You miss her," Justice said.

Harbinger's tail, which had been lying in the grass like a dead thing, curled around his legs. "She's a deserter. I'll have more siblings soon." Justice nodded slowly. He supposed that was true... but he was pretty sure that Ilia missed Blake, even though it was wrong.

"Still." He remembered the tiny hatchling chasing a beam of light right to its source, tackling Ilia to the ground and stealing her scroll. "She was..."

"It doesn't matter." Harbinger curled his wings around himself.

Justice snorted and kneaded the ground with his claws. She'd run away, but she was only a baby. What would she _eat?_ What would she do without a rider? The thought lodged somewhere in his chest, sharp and cutting.

"How could she do that?" he wondered. "Run away."

Harbinger looked at him warily. "I don't know."

"Maybe she meant to come back, but she got hurt."

"You're the one that saw her stealing food."

"Oh." Justice flicked his tail back and forth, agitated. "Right."

"She wasn't loyal," Harbinger said.

Justice let out a low, frustrated growl. "I know that, but I don't _understand._ She didn't just run away, she left her rider."

Harbinger tilted his head to one side. "She wasn't loyal to her rider, either."

"But..." Justice tried to imagine betraying Ilia, but it hurt too much. The little hatchling was roaming around, all alone, instead of being with her rider. _On purpose._ "It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe... Has your rider told you about the big tent yet?"

Justice stared at him. "The one that smells funny? What about it?"

"If she'd told you, you'd know."

"But—"

"I'm not supposed to talk about it." Harbinger moved away from the side of his enclosure, the little fence made of sticks and rope, and slid into a small mudpit. Justice's indignant roar sent up a puff of smoke.

After that, he wandered. Ilia had shown him her tent and told him to go back there when it got dark, but he didn't want to lie down. He paced through the camp, tail flicking in agitation, his mind whirling. It was cold now that it had gotten dark. He stopped, looked into the trees outside the clearing the White Fang were living in.

He had to know.

Justice slipped away from the camp, winding between trees and sniffing the air. He heard animal noises, startled a small rabbit, watched the silhouettes of several bats fluttering across the night sky.

She smelled like sand, like sun-baked rocks and ash and dead yellow grass.

"Hatchling?" He wished he had a name to call her. The darkness was oppressive, and he moved in little circles to watch the forest. The smell was stronger on one side, so he moved in that direction. There was a fallen log, decorated with small mushrooms, and inside it... darkness. He sniffed again.

Two bright spots appeared in the shadows. Justice reared back, but not before the blast of air hit him full in the face. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, it felt like someone had poured salt under his eyelids. He howled and covered his head with his paws.

By the time he could make out even a blurry outline of the forest, the dragonet was long gone. He stumbled back into the camp, half-blinded, whining and lashing out at trees as he ran into them. Finally he broke through into the clearing, whipping his head this way and that, trying to shake away the source of the pain.

"Justice!"

Hands caught his horns, scratched behind his ears. He smelled Ilia and relaxed. Her fingers mapped out the injury. "What happened?"

He whined when she accidentally grazed a cracked scale. A murmured apology, and she gently led him to her tent. It took a long time, and he heard his tail knocking things over while he walked. Finally there was silence, and Ilia said, "Lie down."

For a while, all he could hear was her rummaging around somewhere. He tried to open his eyes to see, and found that things were much clearer now. A bit of rapid blinking stung, but he could now almost make out his rider's face.

"Here." Ilia knelt next to him, coaxing his head into her lap. There was something on her fingertips that smelled like leaves. He tried to pull away, but she grabbed him firmly by one of his horns and touched the side of his face. It hurt, but at the same time there was a wonderfully cool feeling. He relaxed.

"You're lucky I get dry skin in winter," she said, smiling and dabbing more of the plant stuff on his nose.

He lay there a long while, the dryness in his scales slowly being soothed away, his eyes drifting shut again. They didn't hurt very much anymore.

"Be careful," Ilia murmured, as she dabbed the last of the plant stuff on his forehead. "That thing is dangerous."

He snorted indignantly. She was a hatchling.

"I know she's tiny, but it looks like you managed to shut your eyes in time. If you hadn't... I worry. If it got that much worse in only a few days..."

Justice rumbled something vaguely like agreement. He didn't really want to get blasted in the face with the hatchling's powers again, anyway.

"Good." Ilia kissed his snout.

He purred, sinking into a slow, warm contentment he hadn't felt for a long time. Not since that hillside at Haven. As frustrating as it was that there were always so many secrets... at least he knew his rider cared.


	18. Breaking Point

**Hello! I come bearing dragons that fly, climb trees, and play with fire.**

* * *

**18\. Breaking Point**

* * *

"Glacier... no. Don't do it."

Whitley tried to shove the dragon's head out of the way, shielding his little campfire with his body. Glacier's tongue lolled out, his eyes fixed in fascination on the flames.

"Hot," Whitley said, exasperated. "Very hot. It will burn you."

Glacier's head slipped under his arm, just close enough that he could touch the fire with his tongue. He reared back, hissed, and blew freezing mist from his nostrils. Whitley sighed, prodding the rabbit he'd been trying—and failing—to cook. Ice crystals had formed over its charred skin, and when he cut it open it was raw inside.

"I don't know what you expected to happen." He glared at the dragon. "Have you never seen fire before?"

Glacier cocked his head to one side.

"Ugh." Whitley dragged more wood into his makeshift fire-pit and started fussing with the book of matches. He still had eighteen left. Enough for eighteen more days, if all went well. Probably closer to nine, with his luck. He'd have to find another town at some point, preferably one with an airship. Or, at the very least, somewhere they didn't keep their _only scroll_ locked in a safe.

He eventually managed to thaw the rabbit, then burn it the rest of the way through. As he ate, he leaned against Glacier's side, remembering Klein's crepes. Then he wrapped himself in a blanket and curled up under the dragon's wing. In his dreams, Father opened his mouth and made a deep droning noise. Like an engine.

Whitley snapped awake. It took a moment to untangle himself from both blanket and dragon. When he did, the airship had already passed overhead.

"Up!" he shouted, pointing. "Glacier! Go up, now!"

The dragon stared at him.

"Come _on!"_ Whitley snarled, kicking at the fire—nothing but ash, now. "Fly! You have to know what _fly _means!"

Glacier sniffed his hair.

"Fine." Whitley slung his backpack over one shoulder and marched off in the direction the airship had gone. "Follow me, or go away."

Glacier picked a third option, grabbing Whitley by his hood and picking him up off the ground. He yelped, kicking his legs, and paled when he realized what the dragon was about to do. "No!"

Then he was falling onto Glacier's back. He landed on his side, staring down a spine that jutted out less than an inch from his face.

"Don't do that," he snapped, once he'd pushed himself back upright and settled into his usual spot. "You do realize you're _pointy, _don't you?"

No response. Whitley sighed and glanced longingly at the place where the airship had disappeared. Glacier was, naturally, walking perpendicular to where it had been heading.

"You know what I think?"

Glacier whistled a few notes.

"I think it's all a conspiracy." Whitley picked absentmindedly at the fluffy lining of Rusty's jacket. "Riders only _pretend_ dragons can understand them, because..." He couldn't figure out how to end the sentence, so he abandoned the theory. Maybe it was just a problem with ice dragons?

No. He'd met Steele, and there was no doubting that _he _understood basic commands.

Glacier whistled some more. Whitley's eyes drifted closed, listening... until there was a run of notes that touched an old, long-faded memory. He opened his eyes as the dragon did it again, obviously pleased.

"Where did you hear that?" No answer from Glacier... and none from himself, either.

He listened for a long while as Glacier walked and sang, pausing every so often to stare at the moon as if transfixed. Whitley wondered whether he'd been able to see it through the window in his stall.

The music was interrupted when a twig snapped. Whitley sat up straighter, eyes straining to see into the gloom all around them. Glacier stopped walking, sniffing the air. Leaves rustled.

_It might be a deer,_ he told himself. Or it might be a person with antlers... and a gun.

"Hello?" he called out. If it were an animal, he thought it would probably startle—and if it wasn't, it wasn't like he'd be giving himself away. Glacier wasn't exactly subtle.

There was no response. No panicked doe bounding away from them. Just silence.

He gripped a spine on the dragon's back in one hand, felt corded muscle with the other. Trying to reassure himself. Glacier stretched his neck forward and hissed. And, as if in answer, something growled.

Whitley hoped it was the White Fang. Hoped it would be some massive bear faunus, to be able to make a noise like that.

It wasn't.

A patch of shadow slid out from behind a thicket. Whitley didn't need to see it properly to know that no animal would have _that _silhouette. He tried to count the legs, anything to keep himself focused when all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and hide.

Red eyes opened. There were six of them, and suddenly Whitley couldn't keep counting legs, because he had to try and count _heads._ He couldn't see much, except that there was something about the shape of them that seemed canine.

"Glacier," he whimpered. The dragon still hadn't moved. He was crouching, his eyes trained on the Grimm, not moving a muscle except for a slight twitching in his tail.

One of the heads reared backwards towards the sky and started to laugh. The other two joined in, and then there were three of them cackling in unison. Whitley shrank against Glacier's back. "K-kill it! Kill it!"

One of the heads stopped laughing and rolled around to stare at him. It was close enough now that he could make out the lines of red on its bone mask. The body moved strangely, limbs jerking and twitching as it stepped closer, still laughing.

"Glacier!"

No movement. The Grimm kept coming. Whitley hid his head under his arm—and then the laughing was replaced with an eerie shriek.

When he looked up, something dark was dripping from one of the Grimm's faces. Glacier bolted into the woods, tearing his way through the undergrowth as the uncanny laughter started again.

A tree loomed ahead of them, thicker around than the others. Glacier leaped at it and dug in with his claws, scrabbling at the bark. Whitley shrieked and grabbed the spines on his back as he was turned sideways. He just managed to hook one foot through the strap of his backpack before it fell.

Below them, the Grimm had reached the tree and was tearing into its trunk, making the whole thing shake as splinters flew everywhere. Glacier clawed his way higher, his wings spreading to either side. Then, he jumped.

Whitley clung to his back, to shocked to make a sound, his legs wrapped tight around Glacier's neck. Pale wings came up on either side of him. He felt the muscles flex as they came down. Wind tore the hood away from his face and whipped his hair into a frenzy as Glacier gained altitude. When he looked down the world had turned into a painting, or maybe the view from some far-off tower—dappled greens and browns down below, shattered moon and scattered stars overhead.

Belatedly, Whitley screamed. It turned into a laugh halfway through—mingling with the distant cries of the Grimm they were leaving far, far behind. He craned his neck to stare at the ground, his heart beating in his throat. Instinctively, he squeezed with his knees to hold on better. Glacier _hissed_. Whitley let go, and spent the rest of the flight trying not to do it again.

Not that the rest of the flight was very long. Glacier landed heavily several minutes later, panting, his tongue hanging out. Whitley patted his neck, glancing fearfully over his shoulder and hoping they were far enough that _thing _wouldn't find them.

"So you _can _fly, then."

No response.

"Right." Whitley looked skyward, drinking in the broken moon. It seemed further away, now.

* * *

The cave was empty.

Blake limped forward a few steps, turning her head this way and that as if Brand would suddenly reappear out of thin air. She could hear Pit's walking a few paces behind her. Other than that, everything was silent.

The tungsten chain lay by the wall, coiled into an unassuming heap. As Blake approached it, one of her crutches struck something hard and sent it skittering across the stone floor. She limped over to where it had stopped and leaned over to see.

It was an open link. She could see the scratches the file had made on one side, the slight bend in the other where it had been forced open. Hazel had finally gotten through.

Slowly, wincing as she put a bit more weight on her bad leg than was probably wise, she snatched it up and weighed it in her palm, watching the light from the entrance play across its surface. She pocketed it.

She didn't like how nervous it made her, knowing he was free. He _deserved _this. He deserved to get out of this cave and fly again. Brand had never wanted to hurt anyone.

"Come on," she told Pit. "We might as well go back."

* * *

"Awn!"

Twiggy bounded down the hill towards her rider, moving so fast she almost bowled him over. Both wings flapped wildly at her sides, as if she was showing off the newly healed one. He hugged her around the neck, laughing as she lifted him off his feet.

Mudslide growled and snapped at her as she passed. Twiggy didn't even notice.

She trudged in the same direction, much more slowly. The joints in her wings popped when she opened them. Cardin met her at the field with her tack, tossing it over her back and yanking at the straps. Twiggy was about fifteen feet away, running circles around her rider while he held up her saddle. Mudslide glared at them, squaring her shoulders as the first weights were tied in place.

"Remember!" Jaune held up a finger and bopped Twiggy on the nose. "No extra weights. And you're only carrying half today, to make sure you're all healed up."

Twiggy rolled on the ground and pretended to sulk.

Cardin glanced over his shoulder. He snorted. "Idiots."

Mudslide glared at the other pair. She couldn't understand why Twiggy got _rewarded _for being useless at flying. Glancing around the field, she noticed Pit waiting patiently while Blake tied on weights—_way _less of them than she was supposed to.

Another weight was settled in on her back. Ozpin made a final round, checking—as every teacher had since Twiggy had hurt herself—the weight on the backs of each dragon. When he got to Cardin and Mudslide he stared at them for a long moment, his lips pressed tightly together.

"What?" Cardin patted Mudslide's back. "You can count, right?"

A muscle in Ozpin's jaw jumped. He moved on.

Cardin tied on the last few weights, smirking at the professor's back as he did so. None of the other students seemed to have noticed—they were all too busy double-checking their dragons' burdens. "Forty pounds ahead," he said, with deep satisfaction. A traitorous warm feeling settled in Mudslide's stomach. "At this rate I bet I'll be the first one in the air!"

Mudslide's ears went back. She pictured flying with Cardin on her back and smothered a low whine, forced her tail to be still. She wanted Sky. That was wrong, wasn't it? She _chose _Cardin.

_'But you were only a baby,' _Jade had said. _'Shouldn't you be able to choose again, if you want?'_

It didn't matter anyway. Sky was gone.

"Professor?"

Mudslide's head turned. Specter and Titan were both standing with their riders, their heads tilted curiously to either side. Weiss had called Ozpin over, one hand resting on Specter's saddle.

"Yes?"

Pyrrha stepped forward. "Both our dragons are carrying our weight already. We weren't sure if we were supposed to keep adding more."

Ozpin smiled at each of them in turn. "Yes, you should keep following the schedule as before—but I'm glad you asked."

Mudslide flicked an ear irritably. _Show-offs._

When she glanced at Cardin, he was scowling. She edged a little further away. Without warning, he turned and walked off towards the enormous heap of sandbags. He came back with one in each hand.

"There," he said, grinning. "Now I'll be all caught up."

_'He's nothing without you,' _Jade had said. _'He's weak.'_

And Sky, kneeling with her head in his lap, holding a carrot in one hand and stroking her brow with the other. _'He doesn't deserve you.'_

She'd been trying for a long time to understand why she couldn't earn his love. But now, for the first time, she wondered what he'd ever done to earn hers.

He was already tying one of the weights to her saddle. She reared her head back and rammed her shoulder into his chest, sending him sprawling. Then she leaned down close to his ear and roared, _"No!"_

His face turned red, then purple. She almost backed away—not sure if she was angry or scared or just dizzy—but then he made a small, choked noise. His mouth hung open, his breathing coming in tiny gasps.

Mudslide reared back and howled. He wasn't breathing right—was something squishing him? She couldn't see anything... Had something broken? She'd hit Twiggy much harder than that when they were smaller, Cardin _had _to be stronger than the little runt!

He groaned, tried to roll over. She nuzzled at his side. He'd get up, he'd get up now and he'd be fine, and maybe he wouldn't try to put so many weights on next time and—

Cardin cried out when she touched him, his face going from purple to white. He wasn't even looking at her. Wasn't looking at anything. His eyes were fixed on the sky, unfocused.

And all around them, the others were closing in.

* * *

Ruby heard the roar from all the way across the field.

She was in the air, on Storm's back, practicing turns with the other wind riders. The noise had come from the other side of the training field, where the rest of their class was working on conditioning. Already people were clumping together into a crowd, with a single dragon in the center.

It let out a long, low howl. Angry. Panicked.

"Let's go," Ruby told Storm.

If anyone tried to stop her, she didn't notice. Storm furled her wings and dipped into a shallow dive. As they approached Ruby picked out more details. It was an earth dragon at the center of the chaos, snapping and snarling at anyone who came too close. She recognized Mudslide's dark brown scales.

Then Storm banked sideways, and Ruby got her first glimpse of the shape crumpled on the ground behind Mudslide. A person. _Cardin._

Ruby started unbuckling her legs.

When Storm landed she was already sliding out of the saddle, hitting the ground and breaking into a sprint. Most of the students were keeping well back, now, but she could hear Ozpin's voice. He was murmuring soothing gibberish, but Mudslide kept snapping at him, her tail whipping back and forth over her prone rider.

Ruby pushed her way between a startled Sun and Neptune. From the front of the crowd she could tell that Cardin was moving, but he was obviously hurt. She couldn't see anything nearby that might have done it. How...?

She stepped out of the crowd of students and locked eyes with Ozpin. He frowned when he noticed her, but he didn't try to stop her. Mudslide's eyes were blown wide, flickering back and forth in a frenzy. She growled at Ruby's approach, her ears twitching anxiously.

"Hey..." She kept her arms at her sides, hands relaxed. "Remember me?"

The growl went up in pitch, like the end of a question.

"Yeah. That's it..."

Cardin groaned and tried to roll over. Mudslide tensed again, her back arching.

"We need to take a look at your rider," Ozpin said, his voice kept carefully calm. "Can you let me come help him?"

Mudslide bared sharp fangs at him.

"Easy..." Ruby edged a little closer, circling around so that she was approaching from the same side Cardin was on. Mudslide stepped over him, putting a paw down in her way, teeth still bared. "I know you're scared. He's gonna be okay, I promise! But he's gonna need some help first, and he can't get it unless we can take him to the infirmary."

The dragon crouched a little lower, her back legs tensed to pounce. Ozpin stuck out an arm to stop Ruby from coming any closer.

Slowly, Mudslide relaxed. Cardin wasn't making any noise anymore.

"Good girl," Ruby said softly. "Everything's going to be okay. Just back up a little more for me, okay?" Even as she said it, she knew it would never work. It had taken hours to convince Pit not to break into the infirmary when Blake had been hurt, and he'd had all three other dragons and their riders pitching in to calm him down.

But Mudslide moved. She retreated a few more paces, her tail curling tightly around herself. Ruby didn't try to second-guess it. "That's good." She followed Ozpin as he approached Cardin, very slowly. This time Mudslide didn't snap at him. She just backed up further, eyes bouncing from Cardin to Ozpin to Ruby and back again. He lifted the boy up and backed away.

"Hey," Ruby murmured, when Mudslide moved to follow. "It's okay. They're going to take him to some people that can help him feel better. That's good, right?"

Mudslide let out a low growl that turned into a confused warble.

"Yeah..." Ruby inched closer. "There we go. You and I can hang out here for a little bit, okay?"

The dragon relaxed a little, settling back on her haunches. "Good... That's good. Can I come a little closer?"

Mudslide watched her warily for a long moment, but didn't protest. Ruby moved slowly, until she was only a few feet away. She made no move to touch her. "There we go. It's okay, everything's going to be okay."

This close, she could see the haphazardly tightened straps on Mudslide's saddle. The stack of sandbags she was carrying, tied together in a big tangle. All twenty-two of them. Ruby's heart sank. Mudslide shouldn't be carrying more than two hundred pounds. Why—?

And then a lot of things clicked together into one horrible picture. Cardin on the ground, injured, with no aggressor in sight... except Mudslide. Self-defense, but not the kind the Council would forgive.

Ruby swallowed hard. If she started crying now, it would scare Mudslide. "Easy," she said again. "It's alright." Only it wasn't. Tornado had died even though Jaune's sister hadn't been hurt, even though her family hadn't wanted him culled. Cardin...

She glanced over her shoulder. The other students were staying well away, now, even Yang and her friends. Slowly, she stepped closer. Mudslide went rigid and bared her teeth again. Her breath was hot.

"You need to go," Ruby said softly, so that no one else would hear. "Run away. Hide."

Mudslide blinked at her.

"Go on!" She pointed towards the woods. "They won't find you there." She hoped desperately that it was true. "Go!"

A low rumble started somewhere in Mudslide's chest. Half growl, half whimper.

"Please..." Ruby made a shooing gesture with one hand. "Go away, before someone comes!" Her voice shook despite herself. "If you don't they'll—_please!"_

Finally, Mudslide reared back. Her wings flared, and the sudden gust of wind almost knocked Ruby over. Then she bolted for the treeline.

Ruby watched with her arms around her stomach, hugging herself tightly as she watched Mudslide disappear into the woods. No one moved to stop her—they just watched. All of them remembered what would happen if she stayed.


	19. Dragonback

**Hello again! Today we've got tons and tons of first flights. Also, Cardin continues to have a really bad week, which I think is something we can all enjoy...**

* * *

**19\. Dragonback**

* * *

Two broken ribs. It could have been worse.

Ozpin shut the door to Cardin's room in the infirmary behind him and stood there for a moment, his mouth set in a grim line. None of the boy's teammates had come to visit him. No one had brought flowers or cards.

He cleared his throat. Cardin stirred, his eyes fluttering open.

"I hear you've been healing well."

"Yeah." Cardin tried to sit up and winced. "Did you catch that psycho dragon yet?"

"We've had no success in locating Mudslide."

"Why the fuck are you here, then?"

Ozpin lay a hand on the metal rail on the side of the bed, tapping it a few times with his forefinger. "I've made many mistakes in my life," he said softly. "Few have been as disastrous or morally compromising as allowing you to tarnish this institution for so long."

Cardin scoffed. "Look, old man. One of those monsters just _attacked _me, so if you want to still _have _a school by the end of—"

"I remember our previous discussion." Ozpin's hand tightened on the rail. "You threatened to go to the Council and put fellow students and their dragons at their mercy."

"Yeah." Cardin smirked. "You're covering for the useless rejects. And that's, what, half the first year dragons?"

"Not as many as that." _Quite a few more._

"So how about you go find the stinking lizard that broke my ribs," Cardin suggested, "and maybe if you're quick about it I won't bother explaining all that to the Council."

"It's rather late for that." Ozpin leaned forward, bracing his weight on the rail. "I don't suppose you ever paused to consider that what you're threatening to do would create a small army of rogue riders." He sighed. "I don't know how much longer they'll be able to remain at this institution... but I do know that when the Council comes for them, a great many of them will be furious. They will look for someone to blame."

He straightened up, adjusted his glasses. "It would be very unwise to paint a target on your back. Don't you think?"

Cardin gaped at him. "You—"

"Wouldn't do that." Ozpin smiled sadly. "Not if I could possibly avoid it, no. But tell me, Mister Winchester. In the situation you've created, where I must harm someone... how many reasons have you given me to protect you over the dozens of innocent dragons that are in my care?"

The boy's mouth opened and closed a few times. Then he spluttered, "They're just animals!"

"Thank you, Mister Winchester, for making this easier than it might have been."

Glynda was already in his office. He nodded to her as he entered, then sat down heavily behind his desk, massaging the bridge of his nose. Ragnar stirred from where he was sleeping in the back of the room.

"Qrow wants to speak with you," Glynda told him. "He says he found his sister."

Ozpin took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I doubt I'll be able to act on that information until this most recent storm has passed."

"Warning the students should be our top priority."

"Indeed. Let's start with the largest group, shall we?"

Glynda nodded and left the room. Ozpin waited several minutes before his office door opened. He tried to smile, but knew it would look false and dropped it.

He'd only called for those whose dragons were in danger, but all three teams arrived together—RWBY, JNPR, and SSSN. Ozpin gestured for them to enter, despite the fact that it made his office rather cramped.

"Thank you all for coming."

"Something's happening with the council," Blake said.

"I had planned to get around to the subject more gently, but... yes. The debacle with Mister Winchester yesterday has put us in a much more precarious situation."

"How precarious, exactly?" asked Pyrrha.

"That remains to be seen." Ozpin folded his hands atop the desk and looked at each student in turn. "I want you to know that your professors and I will do everything in our power to protect you. Mister Winchester's family is suing Beacon Dragonry, but that only endangers Mudslide, who has fled the premises."

He allowed himself a small smile in Ruby's direction. Then it faded, as he took a deep breath and continued. "With that said... those of you whose dragons are in danger should keep a bag packed. I'll warn you if you need to run."

The students exchanged anxious glances.

"That is all." They filed out, and he caught a snatch of frantic conversation just before the office door closed. Glynda opened it a second later and looked at him expectantly.

"Call for Miss Laurel and Mister Olive, please."

This was going to be a very long day.

* * *

Their riders were slow.

Titan bounded ahead of Pyrrha, barking excitedly. She smiled—though it was a little shaky at the corners. A few feet away, Ao Guang ran frantic circles around Ren. Freya, who had done this already, walked sedately beside Nora, who was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. At the back, with Jaune's hand resting on her neck, was Twiggy.

He felt a little twinge looking at them. Was it wrong to be so excited when his sister wouldn't get to fly with them?

Pyrrha caught up with him and patted him lightly on the shoulder. Her shoulders were tense. Titan ran faster, goading her into a race. Her smile got a little less forced, and the guilt lessened. One thing at a time—first, he had to cheer up his rider.

They were some of the first to reach the practice field. All four of their professors were present—there were even a few older dragons watching with their riders. Titan waited impatiently as Pyrrha finished fastening and double-checking his tack.

Several feet away, Huo accidentally set a patch of grass on fire and had to sit on it to put it out. Zircon was trying to hide his face in Sage's shirt, which didn't really work now that his head was bigger than his rider's torso. To Titan's surprise, Pit was waiting with the rest of them, no weights in sight.

"You're flying with Blake?" Twiggy asked, her tail curling around her feet.

Pit nodded. "It's only a little ahead of schedule for me, so the professors decided to let me try."

She wilted a little, then trotted back to Jaune to let him tie on the sandbags. Titan butted his head against her shoulder as she passed. "You'll get there," he promised.

"Alright!" Doctor Oobleck cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted over the excited chatter. "I'd like you all to line up—fire dragons here, earth dragons over there..."

Pyrrha jogged to keep up with Titan as he rushed over to the ramp. She was starting to catch some of the excitement in the air, though she kept casting worried glances over her shoulder at Jaune and Twiggy.

The wind dragons had a shorter ramp than the rest of them. Titan stared at it, his head tilted slightly to the side. Pyrrha noticed him looking. "They're starting to learn other takeoff methods," she explained. "Ruby tells me they're working up to getting in the air with a running start, but no ramp. Titan felt tired just _thinking _about it.

He and Pyrrha waited behind Fang and Huo. Bored, the two soon started blowing smoke at one another. Titan couldn't join in, so he sat as patiently as he could as Professor Port walked up and down the line, checking all of their tack.

"Don't want any of you falling off, now do we?" he said, and chortled. "Though Pepper and I wouldn't mind the exercise!"

Finally, the professors stepped back. In the front of the line, Fang flared his wings and shot a last smug glance over his shoulder at Huo. Then he was off. He charged up the ramp, the muscles in his chest and legs bunching and releasing, his neck straining out towards the sky. He leaped into the air... and veered off to the left, flapping heavily and letting out a frustrated squawk. Huo laughed at him, but didn't fare much better when he tried a moment later.

Titan was next. He started to run, already thinking he would probably have a few false starts, too. Then he shot a glance over his shoulder to see Pyrrha clinging to the saddle, a slight furrow in her brow.

If the open sky didn't chase the worry off her face, nothing would.

He sped up, digging his claws into the earthen ramp. Then he managed to angle his wings just so, and felt the wind start to lift him off the ground. His front paws hit open air. He pushed off with his back legs, and both wings scooped at the air. There was a perfect, frozen instant where he recognized the feeling from flying with the weights, and _knew._

Pyrrha's cry of delight was snatched by the wind. Titan dipped one wing and wheeled around, passing over the rest of the line as he circled upward. Within moments he was breathing hard, his chest aching with the effort. He held his wings out wide and let himself drift.

His rider scratched at the base of his neck. He craned his neck to look—and all of a sudden he veered hard to one side. The air went out from under his wings, and he started to spiral towards the ground. Titan managed to turn his descent into a steep glide just before he hit the ground at a run, tearing up tufts of grass and coming to a stop in the middle of the field.

Pyrrha slid from the saddle and hugged him around the neck.

"Sorry," she said, smiling. "I distracted you."

He let out a reassuring rumble and said, "Gud." After all, he'd just learned a very useful lesson—it was hard to move your head and fly at the same time. He'd never cared to look at the sandbags while he was in the air.

On his way back to the line, he stopped to greet Twiggy. She was still struggling with the sandbags. Her head was hanging low, her tail drooping.

"I feel like everyone's staring," she said, her ears flicking back.

"They're not," Titan promised. "They're too busy watching that." He pointed his snout towards the fire line, where Huo and Titan were flaring their wings at each other and competing to see who could keep a fire burning in his mouth the longest.

Twiggy's tail curled slightly upward. "I guess so."

"No one's going to tease you about it," Titan promised. Not while Cardin was in the hospital, anyway—at least something good had come of all that.

* * *

"Yeah... I think that's a losing battle, dude."

Neptune froze in the act of smoothing his windblown hair back into something like order. Sun was standing a few feet to his right, leaning on Huo's shoulder.

"Right!" He gave it a last, desperate pat and then dropped his hand to his side. "How's it, uh..." Neptune gestured at Huo. He could feel Nymph giving him one of those looks again.

"Pretty great." Sun smirked at his dragon. "Still no takeoff yet, but he set the grass on fire a few times."

That sounded like the exact opposite of great, but Neptune just grinned and said, "Yeah!"

Behind him, someone coughed politely. He turned around and saw Ren and Ao Guang. Then turned the other way and realized he was next.

"Whoops, sorry!" Sun backed up. "Good luck!"

"Thanks!" Neptune saluted from the saddle as Nymph picked up speed on the way to the ramp. Their last jump had ended in a glide, but he felt his heart in his throat just the same.

Then she jumped, and he forgot how to breathe. The ground fell away. The wind whipped his hair back into a tangled mess. He came back to himself enough to whoop with delight, and far below he heard Huo's indignant roar. Nymph flapped twice, then eased into a glide, circling around the edge of the field.

The sky was getting crowded. He sat up in the saddle to wave as Pyrrha passed overhead, then again when Nymph and Specter flew for a few seconds wingtip to wingtip. About half of the wind riders had managed to take off despite the low ramp, and many of them were playing what looked like a very dangerous aerial version of tag.

Neptune leaned a little to the left and looked out past his foot—buckled securely into the saddle—to the field far below. The distance made him a little bit dizzy, but that was as much excitement as fear. Caught up in the adrenaline, he even shot a cheeky wave at Sun and Huo, who were still earthbound.

Apparently, that was all the motivation Huo needed. Neptune watched from above as he bounded up the ramp and tore into the air, flapping frantically. For a moment he wobbled in the air and it looked like he was about to fall. Then he stopped flapping and stabilized. He shrieked in triumph and veered off towards Nymph.

"I may have miscalculated," Neptune said, grinning.

Nymph didn't turn around, but she gave her head a light toss as if to say, _'Please. I've got this.'_

"Hey!" Sun waved both arms above his head, ignoring the reins completely. Neptune waved back. It didn't look like Huo was planning on turning—until, at the last second, he veered sharply sideways so that Sun was sitting perpendicular to the ground. His yelp was loud enough for Neptune to hear over the wind.

Afterwards Huo circled back around, giving Nymph a smug look. Neptune exchanged a brief glance with Sun. Then the ground pitched and spun nauseatingly around him. He clung to the saddle, his surprised shout turning into a laugh as his dragon righted herself and took her own victory lap around Huo.

"A _barrel roll?" _he shouted. "Really?"

Sun looked from Nymph, to Huo, then back again. He cupped both hands around his mouth. "Tell them I died we—_ah!"_

Neptune grinned as he watched Huo try the same maneuver—twice, in the spirit of one-upping Nymph. Sun came out the other side with his shirt blown up over his head, trying fruitlessly to untangle himself with one hand while the other gripped the saddle.

Nymph responded with some complicated motion—Neptune honestly had no idea what it would have looked like from an outside perspective. From his it mostly just felt like he'd been stuck in a hamster ball and rolled down a set of invisible stairs around eight hundred feet in the air.

He emerged triumphant, if slightly nauseous, and extended a hand to Sun. _Your turn._

As Huo took up the challenge, Neptune happened to glance down at the ground and marveled for a moment at the sight of Beacon's campus laid out underneath them like a fuzzy green map. Almost all of his nerves had evaporated—even in the middle of a stunt, all he had to do was look at Nymph and he _knew _it would be fine. It was... weird. Good, but very weird.

Then again, he didn't have an irrational fear of _heights._

* * *

_Whump._

Pit dragged himself out of the small furrow he'd made in the ground, his tail flicking irritably back and forth. He shook out his wings to try and get rid of some of the soreness. It didn't work.

He started towards the ramp again, but stopped when he felt Blake tap his shoulder. When he craned his neck around to see, she reached out and stroked his nose. "I think it's time for a break."

Pit glared at her reproachfully.

"Don't look at me like that! You might pull something, remember?"

Blake folded her arms and met him stare for stare. He looked away first, huffing and ambling over towards where Twiggy was sitting next to Titan. They greeted him warmly, though Twiggy looked a little wilted.

"Any luck?" she asked.

Pit flopped onto his belly and put his chin down on his paws. "No."

A buckle came loose on his saddle. He reared his head indignantly, only for Blake to pat him gently on the nose.

"Relax," she said. "There's plenty of time left. You can rest for a few minutes, and then we'll try again. Sound good?"

He grumbled a reluctant agreement and helped her down, letting her cling to his neck so that she didn't put too much weight on her leg. The crutches were gone now, which was nice, but she still limped when she walked.

_Can't walk, can't fly._

Pit shook his head and plopped it down on his paws again, a little harder than was probably wise. Titan shot him a concerned look. "Are you alright?"

"Tired." He glanced up and picked out his friends from the tiny specks wheeling about overhead. Specter was easy to find—he was circling low over the field, and whistled a greeting as he passed overhead. Pit narrowed his eyes. The ice dragon had been completely insufferable in flying lessons for the past few days. Just because his rider was so _tiny..._

Blake patted the top of his head. He glanced back and noticed that she was arching an eyebrow at him, as if she'd read his mind.

"It's not a competition," she said quietly. Glanced up. "For anyone but Huo and Fang, anyway."

Pit tried to take the words to heart and relax, but the longer he sat still the more restless he got. He pushed himself back to his feet, and Blake stood up with him. "Are you sure?" He nodded. She grabbed onto his neck and let him swing her up and over the saddle, where she could adjust her leg before buckling herself in. While she was fiddling with the straps, he nodded goodbye to Twiggy and Titan and returned to the ramp.

As much as it had annoyed him to stop, he did feel better as he started his next run. The ramp melted away under his paws. Finally he launched himself into open air and flapped hard. Already he had reached the peak of his jump and was starting to lose altitude. He pushed himself, ignoring the burning in his wings and chest, trying not to think about how easy it _could _be.

He was so heavy... but he couldn't scare Blake. So he let himself dip into a glide and landed with another hefty thump, his tail lashing with frustration.

Zircon took off for the first time. Twiggy had already made several laps around the field with her heap of sandbags. The wait for the ramp dwindled until everyone was either in the air or sitting on the side of the field, resting after their first flight. Blake forced him to take another break.

Finally, he heard Doctor Oobleck call out, "Fifteen minutes, everyone!"

Blake rested a hand on his neck, as if to say that it was alright. He didn't _need _to fly today. Pit tossed his head and charged the ramp. Of course he needed to fly today—he needed to fly _now. _When the world kept getting scarier by the day, when his rider couldn't run without his help, when all he wanted to do sometimes was to scoop her up and hide somewhere in the mountains where they'd finally be _safe..._ he needed to be able to fly.

Pit jumped off the top of the ramp, and for a moment he imagined the red-haired man was there. He clawed his way skyward, angling his wings so that he was moving with the wind... and finally watched the ground fall away.

He'd been so focused, he was startled when he heard a laugh from behind him. Barely resisting the urge to turn and look—Titan had warned him not to do that—he managed an exhausted bark and spiraled into a glide.

Some of the frustration came back, at that—how was he supposed to get away from someone who wanted to hurt them if he could only fly for a few seconds? But then he landed and Blake hugged him around the neck, and he relaxed. He would get better—they had flying lessons again tomorrow.

* * *

That night, Pyrrha found Jaune on the roof.

He was slumped slightly to one side, staring sightlessly across campus. One hand propped his head up, smushing his cheek. He looked up as she passed in front of him and mustered a small smile.

"Hey."

She sat down next to him, close enough that she could bump her knee lightly against his. "What are you looking at?"

Jaune shrugged and went back to staring off into space. "Nothing, really. I think my eyes were pointed at the woods."

"Right..."

For a while everything was quiet, except for the distant chattering of insects. Pyrrha stole a glance in his direction. His eyebrows had drawn together, and she imagined he was looking towards the field where everyone else had learned to fly that afternoon.

_Titan could carry him._

Would it help if she offered? Or would that just make everything _worse?_ Surely he would ask if he felt like that would—no. No, he definitely wouldn't. Would she want to, in his place? Pyrrha opened her mouth to say something, _anything._

Jaune spoke before she had the chance. "I don't mind waiting. I really don't."

"That's... good," Pyrrha said. "Though I can't help but feel like you're working towards a 'but' here."

He mustered a shaky grin. "You got me."

She pressed their shoulders together and waited.

It took a moment, and a few hard swallows, before he spoke again. "You remember what Ozpin told us. I don't mind waiting when it's like this, but... I keep thinking, you know, what if something goes wrong? What if we have to run, and we can't get away? What if—"

He stopped, ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry. I didn't mean to unload on you like that."

Pyrrha gave his hand a squeeze. "You don't have to apologize. And... I truly believe things will turn out alright. Twiggy is _so _close to your weight now, and people and dragons can always do more in a crisis. She'd be able to carry you to save your life."

Jaune tipped his head to the side, leaning it against her shoulder. "...Thanks. That really helps."

"I'm glad."

They sat like that a long time, hand in hand, watching the stars and talking about anything and everything except the future.


	20. Left Behind

**Hello again! I come bearing a student of Shade, territorial Brand, and terrible ****decision making****.**

* * *

**20\. Left Behind**

* * *

When May's scroll went off at four in the morning, she almost didn't answer. She lunged at the device to silence it, looking around to make sure that all her teammates were still asleep. Roy mumbled something and turned over. No one else even stirred.

Rubbing irritably at her eyes, she gave the scroll a second glance. She expected her dad—he tended to forget that she was in a different timezone, now, and that not everyone got up as offensively early as he did. Instead she saw a string of seemingly random symbols where the scroll ID should be.

"What the...?"

She slipped outside and accepted the call, ready to to hang up and go back to sleep if she heard someone trying to sell her something.

"May Zedong."

The voice buzzed like something mechanical. It tripped an alarm in the back of her mind—it was _familiar, _but she couldn't think of why.

"Who is this?"

"You will go to Beacon Academy."

"Wh—"

"You will bring your rifle. You will tell no one. We will—"

"Wait!" She glanced around frantically. The hallway was dark and deserted. She whispered anyway. "How do you know about that?!"

"We will provide you with airship tickets."

"But I—"

"We understand your Flurry still can't support your weight. Strange for a wind dragon, isn't it?"

Under the robotic droning, the tone was casual. Conversational. May reached out to steady herself against the wall.

"It must have something to do with those wing joints."

The faux-sympathy was sickening. She hated it, but not as much as she hated the way her voice broke as she whispered, "Don't tell anyone." Flurry wouldn't last a week in the pits. He was too gentle, he wouldn't want to hurt a fly, much less...

"We will send you the details," the voice said. "Tell no one about this call. Tell no one where you are going."

"I won't. Just don't—"

The call ended.

May slid down the wall until she was sitting with her knees against her chest, staring at the blank screen.

A long time later she got up, glanced at the door to her dorm, and started walking down the hall. There was no way she'd be able to get back to sleep.

Flurry was out cold when she got to his stall, curled in a ball with one wing draped over the floor. She leaned against the door, watching. As he hummed and rolled over, the joint bent oddly before popping back into place.

In her pocket, her scroll buzzed once. May closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the stall door. Later, she'd check the message and pack her things. Come up with some excuse for the boys.

Later...

* * *

"We can't stay here."

Sienna strode past Corsac, ignoring him.

"Sienna!" He and Fennac fell in beside her, even as she lengthened her stride in an attempt to leave them behind. "We can't keep doing this!"

"We won't."

"Then why are we still _here?"_ Corsac gestured at their surroundings. "The hybrid is valuable, _yes, _but we should be halfway to Vacuo by now."

"I know." She wove between two tents and stopped in front of the one that held their supplies. "She's going to have to eat, if we just wait a little longer—"

"Tomorrow."

She looked up sharply. The Lieutenant had come from inside the supply tent, his arms folded over his chest.

"Right." She had to force the word out. "If she still hasn't taken the bait by this time tomorrow—"

"No. Tomorrow morning." He glanced up at the darkening sky. "It's too late to move now."

"We've had _two _successes in almost as many years, and you're all suggesting we leave one in the woods?" Where was Ilia? Could she count on support from her?

It didn't matter. They wouldn't have majority, and she couldn't justify tearing apart the fragile balance between the five of them over one missing dragon.

"Tomorrow morning," the Lieutenant said again, and left.

Sienna spent the rest of the evening in the tent across from their supplies. She made sure to seal the entrance so that the hatchling couldn't catch her scent on the air. Five others waited with her, including Ilia. They would sleep in shifts throughout the night, waiting for a noise from the other tent.

And no matter how smart the hatchling was... there would definitely be a noise if she tried to steal food again.

Sienna should have been asleep by the third watch. She sat up straight, cross-legged, a can of truly _vile _coffee in one hand. The dragonet had broken into their best supply, dried it to dust, and not eaten a bite of it. It was hard to imagine that as anything but an act of spite.

As she waited, she fretted about the racket the crickets were making. Would she even hear the—

_Crack!_

She was at the wall of the tent in an instant, tearing open the flap and sprinting outside. The sound had awakened more than just the rest of their volunteers. All around the camp people were emerging groggily from their tents. Some held blankets in their hands to use as makeshift nets.

Inside the supply tent, the hatchling cowered in front of a small crate they'd set up on one side of the room. After Ilia had mentioned that she seemed to find food by smell, they'd decided to use a skinned pheasant as bait. A simple lock was left on the outside for the creature to puzzle out. And, on the inside, a firecracker was rigged to go off the moment the box opened.

She was bigger. Sienna was startled to see just how much bigger—once the length of her forearm from nose to tail, she was now almost _double _that. She looked smaller as she curled up, pawing at her eyes—how close had she been when the Dust went off?

"We don't want to hurt you," Sienna said, her voice calm and soothing. "Come on. Come here, and we'll get you something good to eat. You can have that whole pheasant if you—"

The hatchling's head whipped back and forth as she shrieked angrily. Others were coming in through the tent flap, now, sheets and blankets in hand. Sienna herself had a gigantic canvas bag which she held out, moving closer to the dragonet. She didn't seem to notice.

"Good," Sienna cooed. "Good, just stay right there." Slowly, she held the mouth of the bag over the hatchling, lowered it...

One moment the dragonet was whining and pawing at her eyes. The next something slammed into Sienna's shins, and she toppled. Someone behind her screamed. When she rolled onto her side to try and see what was going on, Ewan—one of the volunteers that had stayed up with her—was crumpled against a stack of crates. The sheet he'd used as a net was shredded, with scraps of cloth scattered all around him. Similar violence had opened a hole in the tent wall.

"Go!" Sienna shouted, pointing. She scooped up her bag and charged after the dragonet. Some followed her, Ilia among them, while others stayed behind and knelt by the downed man.

Outside, she caught a glimpse of motion almost thirty feet away, disappearing between two tents. Sienna sprinted after it, skidding around the corner. At first, all she saw was an empty path. Then there was a flicker of light to her left. The hatchling was crouched in the shadows between two piles of crates, her bright yellow eyes reflecting a glimmer of moonlight.

Sienna didn't like her odds with the bag. Instead she knelt down and said softly, "You remember me, don't you?"

The hatchling tried to back away, but ran into one of the crates.

"I'm your rider. I'm supposed to raise you and keep you safe."

Those eyes bored into hers as the creature tensed, her back arching slightly to make herself look bigger. She made a sound like sandpaper rasping against stone. There was blood on her claws.

"Easy... easy..."

The hatchling stuck her neck out, head tilted curiously to one side. Sienna inched closer. She didn't hiss again, just sat there watching. Slowly, carefully, she leaned in close. Reached out to scratch the dragonet's head.

A blast of desiccated air hit her directly in the face. Only instinct made her blink, protecting her eyes from the worst of it. The pain was still so intense that she launched herself backwards, curling her arms around her head to protect it.

"Sienna!"

Ilia's voice.

"The dragonet," she said, trying to open her eyes. All she saw was a dim blur before they squeezed themselves shut again. "Find..."

"She's gone."

_"Damn _it!"

"Sienna."

"What?" She struggled to her feet. There still weren't any tears in her eyes, just a horrible stinging. When she touched the bridge of her nose, she felt the skin crack.

"You need to come back to the tent. Ewan..."

"What are you—" A cold feeling settled in her stomach. He was the man the hatchling had tackled to the ground. "What happened?"

"I don't know, but I heard..."

Sienna wanted to bolt for the tent. Instead she had to let Ilia lead her while she stumbled along blind, periodically trying to blink her eyes open. By the time they got there she could make out general shapes, and she was finally starting to tear up.

That meant she could see Ewan. He'd been turned over since he slumped across the crates, and with his front exposed it was immediately obvious that he wasn't going to survive. The scratches were deep, and while most had been taken on his forearms and chest, one had landed on his throat. Someone had tried to use the shredded sheet to stop the bleeding, but he had already gone paper white.

Sienna forced herself to kneel and touch one clammy hand. She didn't say anything—'I'm sorry' felt wholly inadequate. She waited.

A few moments later, she turned to address the crowd of onlookers. "Get a few more hours' sleep," she said. "Then pack everything up. We're leaving for Vacuo the first thing tomorrow morning."

As she marched around the camp, preparing what she could before sunrise, she tried to numb her mind. Instead they ran on in a horrible, endless loop—bloody claws, the scream as Ewan toppled into the stack of crates. Her hands tightened into fists.

They were supposed to be tools. Weapons. She should have known this one was more trouble than it was worth from the moment it attacked Ilia. They would try again, they would raise more hybrids like Harbinger. The vicious little creature could keep haunting these woods for the rest of its life, as far as Sienna was concerned.

No matter how many times she thought it, even when it became a mantra she chanted to herself over and over, she couldn't escape the feeling that she'd been judged... and found wanting.

* * *

Brand sat on his haunches, panting. His lungs burned from walking around, even if it was only in the forest just outside his cave. Every muscle in his body felt heavy and useless. His thoughts moved sluggishly.

Eventually, he got his breath back. Instead of continuing to explore, he curled up in a patch of dappled sunlight and closed his eyes. He wasn't sleepy, but the bone-deep tiredness that had settled in him hadn't gone away. Not even when the chain came off.

He draped a wing over his face. Thinking about the chain was bad—better to think about nothing at all. He tried to make himself sink into sleep. When that didn't work he turned over onto his side, gazing lazily up at the clouds. They were still tinted pink and gold from the sunrise.

Without warning, the peaceful moment was interrupted by a heady foreign smell. _Earth dragon._ He got to his feet and loped off towards the scent, feeling a little of the lethargy fall away in the face of someone encroaching on his territory.

He moved carefully as the source of the smell came closer, positioning himself so that he was downwind. Then, when he heard twigs snap under the intruder's paws, he burst out of the undergrowth and bellowed a challenge.

The intruder was small. Muddy brown scales, moss-green eyes, her ears pinned back in alarm. Brand flared his wings and hissed. Fire bubbled up from the pit of his stomach. Little movements of his wings made the haze of smoke pouring from between his jaws billow and writhe. His tail lashed back and forth, hitting a small sapling and snapping it in two.

She turned tail and bolted into the trees.

Brand's mouth snapped shut. He fell abruptly back onto his haunches, staring at the empty clearing, his spine still tingling with the adrenaline of a fight that would never come. Then that, too, faded away.

He lay down on the soft undergrowth and went back to watching the clouds.

Sometime later, there was another smell. Not an intruder this time, but the kind human named Hazel. He considered getting up. Instead he made a loud chuffing noise and waited to be found.

Hazel greeted him with a light touch on the nose, careful as always to stop a few inches short and wait for Brand to close the gap. Then he sat down cross-legged by his head and said, "The White Fang is moving camp."

Brand lifted his head off the ground. "Go 'way?"

"Yes. We're needed in Vacuo."

He tried to stop the distressed whine and failed. Hazel held out a hand towards his ears, offering to scratch them. Brand snapped at his fingers. No matter how close he got, that never drew a reaction from the human—and this was no exception.

"Bad," he grumbled. "Go 'way."

"You can come with us, if you like."

At that, he perked up. He hadn't considered leaving his cave. Adam had wanted him to stay there—it felt wrong to disobey, even for short walks through the woods. But Sienna and Hazel and Ilia and Blake all said he was dead.

His ears pinned back against his head. He didn't want to be left alone here. He didn't like sleeping with the chain so close by. And yet...

"Lake!" There were only four people he wanted to see. One of them was gone, and now the others were all going away.

Hazel's expression darkened. "I doubt Blake will be at Beacon much longer."

Brand hissed. "Nno!"

"I'm sorry, I can't help that. Ilia and Justice will be with us, though. You could meet Harbinger—he's the youngest dragon the Fang have." At that, Hazel grimaced.

Brand didn't want to meet a new dragon. He wanted to stay where he could see Blake _and _Ilia and Hazel.

But if he didn't go...

He snapped at Hazel's face this time, blowing smoke to signal his displeasure. The human's face fell. Then Brand said, "Rrand... go."

Hazel smiled. "I'm glad."

Brand wasn't. But if someone had to go away... maybe it was best that it was the most confusing one. The one that it hurt so much to look at.

* * *

When morning came, Ilia still hadn't slept. She'd just laid on her back on her bedroll, staring at the canvas ceiling of her tent and wondering when everything had started going so wrong. When Blake left? No... a long time before that.

She stumbled through the morning's preparations, packing up her tent and lending a hand wherever it was needed. Just before they were about to head out, Hazel returned with Brand in tow. He snorted nervously as he entered the camp. Then he greeted the people around him with wary sniffs and relaxed at the familiar smells. No one was stupid enough to get too close—except, apparently, Hazel. Ilia grimaced.

Soon they were on the move, laboring under heavy packs. According to the others it was much easier than the march to Beacon, now that they had dragons old enough to carry some of the lab equipment. Ewan's tentmates split his belongings between them.

By the end of the day, all conversation had died. The hunters they'd sent ahead came back empty-handed, and with how much food they'd lost in the past few days their meals were noticeably smaller. There'd be no way to resupply until they were closer to Fang supporters in Vacuo.

Ilia didn't have the heart to complain, even when they'd set up camp for the night and everyone was well-rested enough for grumbling. She just stared into the fire, nestled between Justice and Brand, trying to ignore the hollow ache in her chest.

Night fell. She pitched her tent and collapsed, exhausted, onto her bedroll. That was almost the end of it, until someone tapped on the canvas flap.

"What," she growled.

Hazel poked his head inside. "Someone would like to see you," he whispered. "Leave the camp in two hours and walk east."

Ilia opened her mouth to argue, but before she got the chance he had disappeared again. She groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. Another late night, and another long day of hiking. _Fantastic._

She considered ignoring the message... but she didn't dare. Not when she didn't know who had sent it in the first place. So, a little less than half an hour after midnight, she slipped out of the camp and into the trees.

Only a few minutes later, she almost tripped over a small heap of bones. Swearing under her breath, she backed up and stared. Judging by the size, she guessed it might have been a fox, or maybe a raccoon. It had long since been picked clean by scavengers, with only a few scraps of dried skin still clinging to the bones.

Stepping past it, she continued further into the woods. The wind picked up, making her shiver. Leaves whispered to one another overhead. A twig snapped. Ilia stopped dead, turning in a small circle with her heart in her throat. There wouldn't be any humans from the school out here... had someone followed her from camp? A much more chilling thought occurred to her—could it have been a _Grimm?_

Minutes passed. Eventually she swallowed hard and pushed further into the woods, keeping her ears peeled for any other suspicious noises. Even if that last one had probably been an animal of some kind.

Several minutes later she came to a small clearing and stopped, listening. It was hard to tell if this was supposed to be the meeting place. Had she veered too far north?

Another branch snapped—this time the noise was _much _louder. She whipped around, and immediately its source was obvious. Blue eyes in the dark, muscle rippling under black and gold scales. And a rider Ilia recognized from Hazel's description.

"You're Cinder," she said, when the two were close enough to hear. She wished she'd brought Justice with her, but there had been no way to sneak him out of the camp.

"I am." She dismounted in one fluid motion.

"You came all the way out here to talk to me? Why?"

Cinder smirked. "I was in the area. Another meeting, one I'll need to arrange in person. I decided to scout the local talent on the way."

Ilia shifted uneasily under the stare of both Cinder and the dragon Hazel had called Strike. "Talent?" It came out a lot shakier than she'd intended.

"Of course. I think you underestimate how hard it is to find competent, trustworthy people."

"I don't—"

The protest died out as Cinder stepped uncomfortably close, still smirking. Dark hair brushed over her shoulder. All of a sudden Ilia saw gold in her eyes instead of fiery orange, and realized just how much she looked like...

"Think about it."

And just like that she was walking away, pulling herself into the saddle. Ilia opened and closed her mouth a few times. There was no way in _hell _she would work with a human... but by the time she'd gotten her voice back, Cinder was gone.

Ilia kicked at a rock and sent it skittering into the woods. She should definitely have ignored Hazel and gone to sleep.

As she started the long trek back to the camp, the stone she'd kicked slid to a halt at the bottom of a small rise. A few inches away was a tiny bundle of bones and feathers, the remains of a small bird... and a bush, to which a few shriveled berries still clung.

* * *

**So. Next chapter. Yes... *****Hides in a shoe***


	21. We All Fall Down

**Whelp. I'm gonna just... duck behind this rock here...**

* * *

**21\. We All Fall Down**

* * *

Three twenty-two in the morning. Clouds covered the moon and stars, leaving only little puddles of light where the pathways of Beacon Dragonry wound under ornate iron lamps. The stillness was absolute. And, as the crickets and night insects suddenly stopped, as if alarmed, so was the silence.

Ragnar's bellow shattered both. It reverberated off the walls, shook the ground, and startled Scarlet so badly he fell head-first out of bed. He groaned, kicking his legs in a fruitless attempt to free himself from a tangle of sheets. Sage helped him. Neptune was already up and staring out the window, his hands clenching the windowsill. Sun had dived under his bed, and soon emerged dragging a large duffel bag.

"Is it...?" Scarlet didn't dare finish the question.

"I don't know." Sage shot a grim look towards the window. "We need to go and find out."

They met RWBY and JNPR on the stairs. Other teams were emerging from their rooms, too. Everyone was groggy and confused, with their hair sticking up in all directions. Some had dressed hastily and were carrying bags over their shoulders.

This wasn't right. They were supposed to have more warning than this.

"Come on." Sun jogged ahead of them and sprinted onto the grounds. An instant later he swore and ducked back inside. The beam of a flashlight swept across the lawn.

"Students of Beacon." The voice was tinny, amplified by a megaphone. "Proceed to the cafeteria in an orderly fashion and wait for further instruction."

"Oh yeah," Sun said. "It's them."

Yang shrugged and strode out the door. Ruby yelped and jogged after her, and that set off everyone else. There was an unfamiliar rider outside. She was perched on the back of a sleek water dragon and had a long whip coiled in her right hand. They were blocking the path that led towards the barns. As they approached her, hoping to go around, she flicked the whip and her partner sprayed them all. Neptune flinched.

"Proceed to the cafeteria in an orderly fashion," the rider repeated. "Wait for further—"

_"Get bent!"_

Someone else in the crowd of students hurled a rock at the rider's head. The dragon snapped it out of the air with one paw and hissed.

"Who threw that?!"

Russel Thrush burst out of the crowd, tossing another rock from hand to hand. "I don't think you heard me! I _said—_"

A jet of water blasted him off his feet. He knocked into Ruby, who hit Yang and Sun, and then Sun slammed into Scarlet and they all went down.

Sage helped Scarlet back to his feet, and didn't let go of his hand once they were both standing.

"I'm sorry." Weiss stepped forward, both hands on her hips. "I must have misheard you. Are we being accused of something?"

The rider pulled a gun and rested it against her thigh. "For your own safety, please proceed to the cafeteria in an orderly fashion and wait for further instruction."

They went—there was nothing else to do.

All along the route there were more council soldiers, all of them armed. The students walked in a tight clump. As they walked, Ruby whispered, "What do we do?!"

"Follow along for now," Blake said. "Wait for an opening."

"What if there_ isn't _an opening?" Jaune craned his neck to check over his shoulder.

"We walk past them." Weiss glared at the nearest rider. "They can't just open fire on a crowd of students."

Blake grimaced. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"Why not? If nothing else, they have to care about public opinion. Murdering teenagers would get anyone who so much as made a coffee for someone involved in this fired twice over."

"I think you're underestimating how much they could warp the story before it even got to the public."

"Guys?" Ruby glanced between the two. "Maybe now isn't the _best _time for this argument?"

"Well," Weiss said, "it seems like a pertinent—"

"What is the meaning of this?"

All heads turned. Ozpin and Goodwitch both stood on the path, between the students and the cafeteria. It looked like they, too, had just gotten out of bed—it was the first time Scarlet had ever seen Goodwitch's hair out of its usual bun. Ragnar stood to Ozpin's left while Nautilus paced around the two to settle on Goodwitch's right.

Someone stepped forward. His uniform had a patch on one shoulder that was more elaborate than the others. "Surprise inspection," he said. Scarlet had guessed that much, but hearing it still put a knot in his stomach.

"You don't have that authority," Ozpin said mildly. "The Dragonmaster must always be informed—"

"You are not the Dragonmaster of Beacon Academy. We've got reason to believe you've been hiding defects on a mass scale." The soldier glanced over his shoulder at the milling students. "Get the hell out of the way so we can get them inside."

"I'm afraid I can't do that without going through the proper channels. If I _am _being removed from my post, I must be given at least twenty-four hours notice—"

"Move, old man."

"I'd like to speak to the council in person on this matter. Rouse them if you must."

"The council sent _us._ And we're saying you need to move. _Now."_

"No." Ragnar growled to punctuate the statement. "This is my school, and these are my students until such time as a member of the council informs me otherwise. They will _not _be held without charge under my watch."

"Yeah?" The soldier put a hand on his gun. "Well, _you _have a charge. Obstruction. So get the _fu—_"

Somewhere in the distance, there was a small _pop._ Ozpin stood there for a moment, swaying slightly. Then he crumpled.

* * *

Ragnar's second cry brought Ruby to her knees, both hands clamped over her ears. It rattled around in her skull and vibrated in her chest—a horrible long, anguished, piercing wail. Her heart wrenched. Was Ozpin...?

Another scream. This one human. Ragnar charged the line of council soldiers, roaring and beating the air with his wings. They fell back, and one of them drew a gun, and the crowd of students dissolved into pandemonium.

Ruby grabbed Yang's wrist in one hand and Emerald's in the other, clinging as the crowd jostled them.

"What do we do?!" Jaune hissed, panicked.

Before anyone had the chance to answer, there was another roar—this one coming from somewhere in the distance, near the barns. A blast of fire hit a tree, creating an island of light in the darkness. Council riders circling around the school converged on the area, grappling with dragons on the ground.

"Come on!" Ruby tugged on Yang and Emerald, hoping the rest would follow as she burst through the line of soldiers. They were too busy with Ragnar to care—and as she watched one of them was knocked clean off his feet, flying like a ragdoll for several yards before he hit a wall.

Where was Ozpin? Ruby searched the ground, but there were students and soldiers everywhere now and she didn't remember exactly where he'd been. Then she pushed her way through a group and caught a glimpse of Professor Goodwitch crouching, both hands on his chest, speaking urgently in a low voice that rose with every second she waited for an answer that wasn't going to come.

The crowd tore them away again. They sprinted across the open field towards the barns, Yang draping Blake's arm over her shoulder to support some of her weight. The first wave of dragons collided with the swarm of students at a run. As the groups mixed, all other sound was drowned out by frantic calls as they searched for their partners.

"Storm!"

Ruby scanned the crowd, but she couldn't see—_there!_ Not Storm but Pit, barreling down a small hill with his tack in his mouth. The others followed right behind him, all carrying their gear with them. Finally, she saw Storm.

It took a long time to fight through the crowd and get to them, and when she was finally close enough she threw both arms around her dragon's neck. Storm whined in distress and dropped the tack, which Ruby scooped up and dropped on her back. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the straps, very aware of the council riders overhead.

"They can't attack with us here," Yang said, looking up as she got Fang's saddle tightened. "As long as we're mixed together like this—"

A blinding flash. Ruby found herself on the ground with her arms over her head, smelling ozone. Storm howled and nudged her with her head until she rolled onto her back, staring at the sky. There was a winged shadow overhead, turning, and as she watched a glowing mote dropped from it.

The Dust went off on impact, creating a gigantic fireball several dozen feet away. Huo was the only one in the blast radius. He flapped his wings and screeched, but she knew it was more alarm than pain—fire wouldn't hurt him.

They were dropping bombs. Ruby scrambled to her feet and hauled herself into the saddle, shouting for Storm to run. Someone else screamed, "Scatter!" but when she twisted around she couldn't see who it had been. The others were all saddled up now.

"The ramps!" Sun shouted. They sprinted across the field, jumping every time there was an explosion or gunshot in the distance, until they reached the four takeoff points. The field was deserted—most of the students still had to get their tack out of the barns.

Ruby craned her neck upwards. There were two dragons flying overhead, now. Another Dust bomb began its descent. She followed the movement, mesmerized, until she caught a glimpse of the school behind them. A great winged silhouette was grappling with another in midair, both shrieking and flapping and clawing at one another. _Ragnar._

There was no one to talk him down.

"Ruby!" She realized she'd pulled on the reins and slowed Storm. Her team and Emerald were all on the ramp, gesturing for her to follow.

"I have to do something about Ragnar." She urged Storm into a gallop.

"You _what?"_ Weiss gestured frantically at the sky. "Ruby, they're—"

"I'll catch up," she promised. Storm took off easily, then veered back towards the two grappling dragons.

When Ruby turned around, she saw that Fang and Jade were both following her. She winced, but there wasn't much she could do—it was impossible to argue with them in midair. Instead she kept flying towards Ragnar.

As she watched, he slammed the council dragon into the side of the cafeteria, crushing a stone gargoyle. The rider hunkered in the saddle, clinging with both hands as Ragnar snapped at him over the other dragon's head. Then the ledge they grappled on gave way, and Ragnar flared his wings to slow their descent. The other dragon hissed and slashed at them, tearing several long gashes in the thin membrane.

Ragnar disentangled himself from the brawl just instants before the other dragon slammed into the ground. It screeched in pain and curled up, one wing bent at an awkward angle, its rider slumped against its back.

"Ragnar!" Ruby stood up in the saddle, holding on with one hand and leaning towards the dragon, as if that would make him understand her. "Ragnar! You have to go!"

His square head turned, his ears lying flat against his skull as he growled deep in his chest. A thrill of fear went through her. Could he even recognize her?

"Please!" Storm passed over his head, then banked to the side to stay close to him as he climbed laboriously back into the sky. "You're hurt! You need to fly away while you still can!"

He roared. Ruby flattened herself to Storm's neck, squeezing her eyes shut at the sound. It was like it had been torn out of him, all grief and rage and a deep, helpless despair.

How was she supposed to convince him to stop? He didn't _care _if he got hurt or not, all he wanted was—wait. That was it!

"They didn't do this!" She gestured at the soldiers, at the dragons flying overhead. "Or... they're not the ones who decided it should happen. It's the people in charge that hurt Ozpin, and you can't find them if you die now!"

He grabbed onto the side of the cafeteria and hung there, motionless, for a long moment. Then his eyes fixed on Storm and he rumbled low in his chest. His gaze turned to Ruby. "Safe."

She didn't understand... but Storm must have, because she flew higher, sweeping towards the forest. Jade and Fang converged on either side of her.

Behind them, Ragnar took to the sky and glided out over the forest. Already he was flapping hard to stay in the air, and the farther he flew the harder he seemed to struggle. She twisted in the saddle to watch him disappear into the distance, gripping the reins hard.

"Please," she murmured to herself. _"Please _be okay..."

* * *

Pit's paws pounded the earthen ramp as he sprinted upward, his lungs burning. There wasn't time for dozens of takeoffs—he had to go_ now._

The air was thick with fleeing dragons. Nimbus, at the head of the group, was already dwindling to a small speck over the Emerald Forest. Pit reached the end of the ramp and launched himself, flapping heavily, and just managed to stay in the air. Already his chest was straining with the effort.

Behind him, he heard a shriek. He tilted his head just enough to catch a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a council dragon tearing towards them, fire roiling between its jaws. He tried to flap harder, but he was already at his limit. Too slow—

Another dragon intercepted the first. It was Gust, wheeling through the air with practiced grace. Oobleck crouched in her saddle, his wild green hair streaming in the wind. She slammed the council dragon off course just before a glowing speck dropped from its back. It landed in an empty stretch of field, instead of in the midst of the dragons charging up the ramps, and a jagged crown of icicles grew up around the spot.

Pit had to look away to keep track of where he was going. He was only at the edge of the forest. Zircon, who had taken off a few seconds after him, was already pulling ahead.

Blake put both hands flat on his back. "Pit! You need to use your powers!"

_What? But I can't! _What if he used them and it scared her while they were flying? What if—

Another shriek. This one was pained, not angry. He craned his neck to see. Gust and the other dragon plummeted towards the ground, tangled up in one another as they fought. As they disappeared behind the main building, there was a final, defiant roar. He couldn't tell which dragon had made it. Then, silence.

"Pit!"

He snapped his head back towards the forest, suddenly very aware of a dark shadow gliding towards them from the right. The air felt so _thin..._ he was dropping, now, his back legs skimming the tops of the trees.

An anxious warble was torn from him. He wasn't _supposed _to use his powers—they were scary and wrong! But every muscle from his chest to his wingtips was screaming in protest as he fought to stay aloft, and there were more shadows, now. Many more. They were swarming up over the field he'd just left behind, human and faunus soldiers.

And then there was a _bang _that he felt right down to his bones, a flash of another time—the narrow pathway between two barns, red hair, Blake lying very still...

A tree exploded into splinters. Less than a second later there were three more cracks in quick succession. Zircon howled and dropped so abruptly that for a sickening instant Pit thought he must have been hit—but a moment later he righted himself and kept flying.

"Do it!" Blake shouted, _"Now!"_

Pit obeyed. He focused on the pull deep in his guts, and his freckles started to glow. His wings came down and he _soared, _gliding through the air like he wasn't carrying Blake at all—like someone had tied a thousand balloons to his back. It was so _easy! _Was this what flying as a wind dragon felt like?

The sound of gunfire faded away. All he felt was the wonderful lightness and Blake's hands on his scales. She crouched low over his back, murmuring soft praise. Then, when even the cries of the dragons still at the school had faded, "I'm not sure how they're going to find us." Storm and Fang and their riders still hadn't caught up with them.

Pit tried to rumble comfortingly, hoping that even if she couldn't hear it over the wind, she would be able to feel it. She scratched his scales, as if in thanks.

They kept flying. His freckles kept glowing.

* * *

_I'm a liar._

Twiggy made her second jump from the ramp. She flapped hard, but spiraled downward until her paws hit the field.

Far above, Pyrrha clenched her hands on the reins. Titan kept circling.

There were soldiers at the end of the ramp. She urged Titan into a dive, shrieking and howling as he swept over their heads. They scattered, and she heard one of them shout a curse. Twiggy took the opportunity to dart past them, charging up the ramp for another try.

Titan landed at the end of the ramp, flaring his wings and roaring a challenge. Pyrrha's voice caught in her throat. She wanted to say no, to tell him to fly away... but how could she, when Jaune and Twiggy were still grounded?

Her eyes squeezed shut at the sound of gunfire, but when she opened them again they weren't even facing her. All of them aimed at the sky as the silhouette of another dragon bore down on them. Pyrrha recognized the flat tail of a water dragon instants before it banked hard to one side, revealing Professor Goodwitch. She was holding one of the council riders' whips in one hand, and as the pair of them passed close to the soldiers she lashed out and knocked several of them to the ground. Nautilus took care of the rest with a blast of water, then climbed back into the air and circled, ready for another pass.

"Go," Pyrrha urged Titan. He took off a second time, but then she spotted Jaune and Twiggy huddled together at the base of the ramp. He was gesturing wildly with both hands while she sat, her paws digging stubbornly into the ground.

Titan landed beside them without prompting. Pyrrha tore herself free of the saddle straps and sprinted towards Jaune, grabbing his arm the moment she was close enough.

"Professor Goodwitch is buying time. We need to go, now!"

Jaune shook his head. "I'm staying."

_"What?!"_

He turned to Twiggy. "Go with Pyrrha and Titan. I'll be okay, my family should be able to help me."

"They're _shooting _people! Jaune, you can't—"

"What am I supposed to do?!" He gestured at the sky. "I dropped my bag, but we just... we can't take off." He grabbed Twiggy's head in his hands, stroking her nose. "They'll hurt you if you stay," he said, pleading. "They won't hurt me."

"No!" She lunged and grabbed a bite of his hoodie, rooting him in place.

"I'll stay," Pyrrha decided. "You can take Titan—"

Titan and Jaune both protested at the same time.

"Pyrrha, it's too dangerous."

"It's _your _plan!"

"Earr-ra." Titan nudged her side with his head. "Nno."

"We need to do _something,"_ she insisted. Could Titan carry the two of them? No, that would be more of a strain on him than Jaune was for Twiggy. But maybe if—

A shadow passed over them. Pyrrha tensed and looked up so quickly she cricked her neck. Then the dragon overhead banked hard around, and flew low enough that she could recognize its rider's red cape.

"What are you guys still _doing _here?!" Ruby demanded, as Storm landed heavily in their midst. Then she glanced up and, seeing Yang and Emerald both gliding above them, waved her arms frantically, gesturing with a hand across her throat to signal that they should stay in the air.

"We can't take off," Jaune explained. Twiggy's ears drooped, and she let out a piteous whine.

Ruby bit her lip, glancing from them to the sky and back again. "Jaune, switch with me. I'm probably light enough."

"Are you sure?"

She hopped off Storm and forced a grin. "Nope! But let's give it a shot."

Pyrrha urged Titan into a run the second she was in the saddle, ignoring the straps for the moment. She might need to get off again, if worse came to worst and one of them had to stay behind and face the council.

She held her breath as Twiggy reached the end of the ramp. Then she jumped, flapped frantically... and steadied herself. Flying was obviously a struggle, but she kept above the treeline even as her tail skimmed the upper branches. Storm took off with Jaune easily. Then it was Titan's turn, and all three of them joined Yang and Emerald in the air.

A horrible shriek made Pyrrha twist in the saddle, craning her neck to look behind them. Just as she turned, she saw Nautilus hit the ground with enough force that his legs buckled under him. There was a circle of council soldiers around him now, aiming...

Pyrrha swallowed a rush of nausea. It curdled into fear as some of the soldiers turned their attention from the elder dragon to the fleeing students. More gunfire. A shot hit the trunk of a tree, showering splinters. Some of them caught in her hair...

_Crack._

Titan shrieked and veered hard to the left. She clung to his neck, searching frantically for the wound, and spotted a puncture just a few inches from his wingtip.

He lagged behind the others, now. Pyrrha flung her bag into empty space without a second thought. Then she murmured encouragement she knew he couldn't hear over the wind—he was so brave, and so strong, and if he could just keep going a little longer they would fix his wing...

Three more gunshots. Then a fourth that made Titan cry out again. Pyrrha pressed her face against his neck, her cheek resting against the row of spines. They had to be almost out of range.

The others had heard the noise and were circling back. If they came too close...

"Down," she urged Titan. "Get below the treeline!"

He tried to obey, but before he had the chance there was another volley. These sounded different—louder. When one of them struck home, Pyrrha _felt _it. A jolt went through her, locking every muscle, paralyzing her. Titan began to fall.

Wind tore her from her seat. As soon as she could move again she grabbed the reins and hung upside-down from the saddle, shouting at Titan to snap out of it.

He did. He twisted in midair, tearing the reins from her hands, and reached for her with both paws. His wings wrapped around her. For a moment everything was very dark, and very quiet. Pyrrha was surrounded by his heartbeat.

Impact.

It was muted, cocooned as she was. For an instant she felt like something was pressing down on her. There was a sharp pain in her shoulder and her hip, and just like that it was over. She lay there, dazed, staring at Titan's scaly chest. One of his wings had dropped away. The other was draped over her, limp. He wasn't breathing.

She fought her way free. His neck curved around towards his body. His head rested motionless in the dirt. Pyrrha knelt beside it, deaf to the distant gunfire. She stroked his brow and waited for his eyes to open. She felt as though she was at the top of a slide, poised above dark, freezing water... suspended in the instant her hands started to slip.

* * *

Gunfire woke her. Mudslide shivered in the small hollow she'd dug for herself and pulled a wing over head, remembering the awful noise that had heralded the death of Tornado. She curled up tighter, wishing it would go away. Wishing everything would just go away and let her sleep.

A dragon howled. Then another and another. There was rumbling in the distance, and shouting. All coming from Beacon.

Mudslide roused fully. She got to her feet and prowling through the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was going on. Her heart hammered in her chest as she approached. Was there another stranger at Beacon?

Was this another culling? Were they here to cull _her?_

And, though she hated herself for thinking it, _What about Cardin?_

The first dragon flew overhead. Mudslide crouched beneath the trees, hunching her shoulders to make herself smaller, hoping her brown scales would blend in with the earth under her paws. More followed the first, a stream of them fleeing in every direction. The flow slowed to a trickle. Then, more gunfire. An agonized shriek. And the last of them started to fall.

Mudslide ran towards the place where the dragon would land, keeping her eyes peeled for any others that might spot her. It was easy to find the crash site—a tree had been hit, and now lay in splinters as long as her tail.

Titan was curled on his side, his head lolling on the ground, his rider petting his snout. Mudslide stayed very still, watching. Waiting for him to get up and fly away. He didn't.

Shadows passed over the clearing. Twiggy, Storm, and Fang, and Jade, the one that had listened to her. In the distance, there was another dragon—a bigger one. Its rider was pointing at Storm.

Another bang. Storm kept flying. A miss.

Mudslide knew right down to her bones that this was the council. They were here for the others that were like Tornado. They didn't want the students to get away.

She burst out of cover, charging towards Titan and his rider. Pyrrha looked up sharply, then stared at Mudslide, her mouth slightly open.

Mudslide tried not to look at Titan._ No, not Titan. _Just the empty shell he left behind. She focused on his rider, grabbing the back of her shirt in her jaws and giving her a tug.

"No!" The rider struggled. "Get away from us!"

Ignoring the words, Mudslide glanced around, chuffing irritably when she realized there was no good place to take off. Still holding the rider in her teeth, she began to climb the fallen tree. It had gotten tangled up with several other trees as it fell, so that it lay at an angle. Her claws scraped the bark. Pyrrha's flailing foot struck her shoulder and she growled.

As tempting as it was, she didn't drop the human. She just clambered up the tree until it creaked alarmingly under her weight. Then she deposited Pyrrha on her back, stretched her wings out wide, and took off. She had to veer hard to the left to avoid hitting another tree, but within a few moments she made it above the tangle of branches and into open sky.

She met Twiggy in the air, the smaller dragon pulling up out of a dive. It only took a moment of wide-eyed staring before she understood. A wrenching howl echoed off the distant walls of the dragonry.

"Shut up," Mudslide snapped. "You'll bring them over here."

"Where is he?!"

"It doesn't matter anymore. They're—" Mudslide stopped. Titan's rider was pounding a fist against her shoulder.

"Stop! I can't leave, you have to turn around, _go back!"_

A rallying cry from Storm. "Here! This way!"

Mudslide wheeled towards her, eager to escape Twiggy's accusing stare—she hadn't _done _anything...

Others converged on them. All the dragons Cardin had decided were enemies, and more besides them. Mudslide recognized a strange water dragon as she drew closer—Rudder, Jade's brother. Barracuda and Tank swerved in from the south, letting out triumphant bugles when they saw her. She couldn't find it in herself to return the happy greeting, even though she was glad to see them.

"There's a safe place," Storm called out, once they were closer. "Ragnar told me!"

Mudslide stared at her. _Safe? _What could be safe when they'd attacked the dragonry?

She followed anyway. Because Twiggy and the blond boy were going, and she knew she should give back Titan's rider. Because there was nowhere else to go. And because _safe _meant the quiet confines of her stall after she'd moved to the earth stables, curled up on sweet-smelling straw while Sky fed her by hand... and that was what she really wanted.


	22. Branwen

***Pokes head up* Okay, okay, but before you get the pitchforks... can I interest you in some Lil' Cute Boy Ozpin?**

* * *

**22\. Branwen**

* * *

Six in the morning. The air was crisp and cool, the sky a mix of deep indigo to the west and pale blue to the east. Faint birdsong came from the forest nearby. The woods themselves were a dark silhouette, lost in shadow.

Oscar yawned.

He stumbled into the small shed out back, pulling tools off the rack and propping them against the side of the barn. Then he stretched and tried to shake himself the rest of the way awake. No such luck.

As he went about his chores, still clumsy with drowsiness, the sky slowly lightened. The first rays of sunlight peeked out over the trees. And, when he looked closer... he thought he saw some kind of bird. A really _big _bird, if he was judging the distance right.

An _impossibly _big bird. Oscar dropped a rake on the ground and sprinted towards the woods to get a better look. Already the speck had turned into a winged shape. Then, when it was still far in the distance but _definitely _not a bird of any kind, it dropped sharply below the treeline. Seconds later he heard a quiet thump—as if there had been a very loud impact somewhere very far away. He started to run.

It took a long time to find what he was looking for. He wandered in circles once he reached the area he thought he'd seen the winged thing fall, trying for a spiral pattern but constantly detouring around sharp rises and clumps of impassable undergrowth. Just as he waded through a small stream, he saw it. The top branches had been knocked off several trees. Oscar raised a finger and followed the swathe of destruction. Then he froze, his finger pointing at a large, mossy rock.

The rock twitched.

Oscar backed up a pace, alarmed, as the bizarre shape unfolded itself into a very familiar one. Two wings, like gigantic sails—one stretching overhead, the other lying flat on the forest floor. A long, thick tail that coiled in the grass. Gigantic flat paws, shaped like shovels and tipped with sharp claws.

And then it turned, and he stared into two ashen grey eyes. They regarded him for a long moment, unblinking... until a low rumble started in the dragon's chest, one that Oscar felt right down to his bones.

It tried to get up, stood for an instant on shaky legs. Then it collapsed onto its stomach, letting out a low, pained growl. The wing closest to Oscar pulled in towards its body, and he realized with a pang that there were several gashes in the thin membrane—one of them longer than his arm.

There, in the small forest north of his family farm, staring down a gigantic dragon that had just dropped out of the sky, Oscar did the only thing he could think of.

"Um... hello?"

The dragon's head lolled against the ground. A long, anguished moan was its only response. It tried to stand again, but it was obvious that at least one of its legs was hurt.

"Stay there!" Oscar inched closer, his heart beating in his throat. Where was its rider? Had they fallen off in the air? No, it didn't have a saddle on. How...?

But that wasn't really the point right now.

He knelt a few feet away, speaking softly. "Shh. It's alright. You're safe here."

The dragon groaned, its eyes sliding halfway shut. "Ozz," it mumbled. "Ozz..."

Oscar had never felt so lost in his life. "Do you need me to find someone?"

At that, a shudder went through the dragon, right from its nose to the tip of its tail. Then it _howled._ Birds erupted from the undergrowth, twittering in alarm. Oscar clamped both hands over his ears, tears pricking at his eyes as the horrible sound went on and on.

When it finally stopped, the dragon slumped into the dirt. Spent.

Oscar murmured soothing nonsense, the sorts of things he would've said to a spooked horse. The dragon watched him with glazed eyes, seeming to look straight through him to the vast, empty sky. Finally he abandoned caution and offered a hand to the creature, offering to let it smell him.

It closed its eyes, curling its tail around itself and drawing a wing over its body. He winced, closed his hand into a fist, and let it fall to earth with a quiet thump.

"I'm sorry..." There was a small rumble of acknowledgment.

Oscar glanced at the sky and said reluctantly, "I need to leave soon, or my aunt will panic."

The grey eyes opened again, fixing on his own.

"She'll know what to do," he promised. "We can get you some help—a doctor, or—"

"No!"

Oscar reeled back, his heart pounding. The dragon's ears pinned back against its head, and it bared its teeth. "They won't hurt you," he promised.

"No." Its voice was softer, this time. "Nnot safe."

"What? Why wouldn't it be safe?"

"No." A long, heavy sigh, as if it were already exhausted by talking. "No ahnt. No."

"I... okay." Oscar stood up, his hands trembling. "I won't tell anyone."

"Gud."

He took a few steps into the woods, then stopped. Turned. "I'm Oscar. What's your name?"

"Rrak-narr." Oscar turned the name over and over in his head as he walked back to the farm, wondering why it struck him as so _familiar._

He kept wondering until late that evening, when his aunt turned on the news. A horrible sickening feeling settled in his stomach. And as he watched, he finally learned why a dragon had just crashed in his backyard.

* * *

_"Go north," _Ragnar had said. _"Between the two tallest mountains. You'll come to a river. Follow it. Safe."_

They'd already passed between the two tallest mountains. Storm scanned the sea of green beneath her, looking for a river. A stream. She'd take a _pond, _even. But all she could see were trees.

"Are you sure he said north?" asked Specter.

"Yes!" Storm said, annoyed. "We went the right way, I'm sure of it. Just help me look for the river!"

Specter seemed taken aback. "Right. Okay."

Storm's head fins drooped guiltily. "Sorry. I just..." She trailed off, but she got the feeling it didn't really need to be said. Not when they were all feeling it. Only a few hours ago, her home had been invaded. She was tired and hungry. Jaune was flying with her instead of Ruby.

Titan was gone.

Ruby's voice brought her out of her thoughts. She couldn't make out what she'd said, even though she'd been shouting—there was too much wind, and they were too far apart. Both Twiggy and Pit had been struggling for a while, now, and were flying all the way at the back. But then other dragons picked up the call, and it spread through the whole group.

Dragon. _Council _dragon.

There was no chance they'd be able to outfly it. Not unless they split up, and no one wanted to do that. Storm dropped back to where Twiggy and Ruby were, barking in alarm.

Pit began to glow, flapping harder than ever. Instead of pulling ahead, he went _up, _so that his back was skimming the bellies of the clouds. Storm tensed as she caught the scent of the unfamiliar dragon. It was close, now. She could hear its wingbeats.

Then Pit dropped like a stone, even as his freckles kept glowing. There was a panicked shriek from behind her. Storm risked a peek, struggling to keep herself from veering off-course. The council dragon was falling, one wing flapping frantically while the other was pulled back—as if an invisible hand had grabbed it. Just before the two would have hit the trees, Pit let go, giving them a few seconds to slow down before they crashed.

"Pit!" Storm felt a flush of relief. "That was amazing!"

All around, others added their agreement—even Barracuda and Mudslide. Pit didn't say anything. He just kept flying, his eyes fixed grimly on the horizon. Blake stroked his neck, soothing sore muscles as he dipped ever so slightly towards the ground.

Storm returned her attention to the forest below, searching for a glimmer of water. They _had _to find the safe place. Soon.

* * *

Mudslide could feel the human on her back shaking. It had been like that for hours, now, not that she could do much about it. When they landed, she could give the rider back to her team and their dragons. For now, she suppressed the urge to snap when she felt hands tightening on her shoulders.

She huffed irritably, scanning the ground for the stupid river that Storm insisted had to be around here _somewhere._ If they hadn't already passed it. If Ragnar had been telling the truth—what would he or Ozpin know about a safe place, anyway? Beacon was supposed to be safe for Tornado.

The wind changed, and a new scent on the air interrupted her thoughts. She perked up. "Dragons," she said, veering off to the east.

"Wait." Zircon stared apprehensively towards where the smell was coming from. "What if they're council dragons?"

"We should land," Jade suggested. "It'll be easier to sneak around under the trees. And... we probably can't keep flying much longer anyway."

Mudslide snorted. _She _could keep going all day, since she was strong and Pyrrha was much lighter than the weights she was used to carrying. It was Twiggy and Pit who were struggling. Still, the sooner they landed the sooner she could drop the human on her back. She didn't know what to do about the shaking—not when it was some stranger instead of Sky.

They touched down in a small clearing. Pit collapsed onto his stomach immediately, his tongue lolling. Twiggy limped over to Mudslide before she sat down hard on her haunches. She greeted Pyrrha with a nuzzle and a soft, pained whine. Then Jaune was there, pulling her into a tight hug and murmuring something in her ear. When they separated, he kept hold of her hand. Mudslide left them to it.

They walked side by side through the woods, the dragons in the lead lifting their heads to try and figure out where the strangers were. Barracuda and Tank walked with Mudslide, though both were paying more attention to their riders. They ran into a river, maybe the one Storm had been looking for, and followed it.

Their only warning was a twig snapping. Mudslide's head snapped up, just as strange dragon erupted from the bushes and landed in a crouch in their midst. He was _gigantic _for a wind dragon, with jagged scars running along the length of his nose and narrow, hostile yellow eyes. On his back was a human with a rifle that she pointed casually, almost lazily, in their direction.

"Look what I found," she drawled.

Then, she got a better look at their group. Her smirk faded. "Follow me," she said, her voice now wary, but respectful. "I'll take you to our camp."

Sun raised his hand. "Uh... what?"

The human didn't answer him. Her dragon let out a displeased hiss, then stalked towards the woods. They stopped at the edge of the treeline, the woman glancing over her shoulder and raising an eyebrow.

"Well? Are you coming or not?"

Several students exchanged incredulous looks. Storm broke the silence. "Go," she said. "Rrak-nar."

"Ragnar told you to go to them?" Ruby asked. "Who are they?"

Storm shook her head slowly. And, even though the riders wouldn't understand, "I don't know..."

Weiss made a face. "Does anyone have a better idea?"

No one spoke.

"I guess that settles it, then." Sun put his hands on his hips and grinned. "Take us to your leader!"

The walk was tense. Mudslide stuck with her siblings and, despite herself, kept gravitating towards where Pyrrha and Jaune were walking.

Ruby tried talking to the strange human. "I'm Ruby, and this is Storm. What about you two?"

She got a suspicious glare in response. Then, after a long moment. "Vernal." She patted her wind dragon's back. "He's Cyclone."

"So... your camp. Is it, like, you and a few friends, or...?"

"You'll find out."

"This is dumb," Huo grumbled. "Why are we following her?"

Storm flicked her tail anxiously. "Ragnar said we'd be safe out here."

Fang growled. "I don't trust them. He narrowed his eyes at the wind dragon. Cyclone glanced at him and snorted, tossing his head as though he was beneath his notice.

"Stop it," Pit said, before Fang could start anything. He still sounded exhausted. His tail dragged behind him like a limp rope.

Almost an hour later, their riders were starting to tire, too. Pyrrha stumbled on every other step, mostly because she wasn't watching where she was going. Eventually most of them remounted. Blake rode on Specter to let Pit rest a little longer. Mudslide decided to pick Pyrrha up again, since she was getting tired of watching her trip. Jaune insisted on walking beside them.

Mudslide kept an eye out as they drew closer to the 'camp,' whatever that was. She knew she wouldn't be able to convince the others to change their minds, and there was safety in numbers... but she was tense, ready to bolt if more dragons showed themselves—_after _she gave Pyrrha back to Twiggy. A whispered conversation got Barracuda and Tank on board, too.

She was still bristling when Vernal said, "We're close." Her ears twitched, taking in every sound. Her head moved this way and that. Every sense was on high-alert. She sniffed the air... and for a moment she couldn't recognize the smell. A wave of calm washed over her anyway, along with an unshakable certainty that yes, this place was safe.

A second later, she realized. She bolted towards the camp, heedless of Cyclone's enraged hiss. People called after her. Pyrrha snapped out of her fugue and tapped frantically at the back of her neck. That meant stop. Mudslide sped up.

She passed one sentry before she got to the source of the smell. They tried to block her way, and she jumped over them. She could see him now, struggling with a stack of wooden logs, just turning towards the commotion...

Mudslide pounced.

* * *

One instant, Sky was hauling an armful of firewood towards the center of camp. The next, the wood was scattered on the ground. Two massive paws pressed down on his chest, and two bright green eyes stared into his.

He made a confused, half-choked noise. Mudslide licked him.

"Hey girl," he managed. "I, uh... what—how the—?"

He squirmed, trying to look around, but she had him pinned. Sky sighed and let his head hit the dirt. Mudslide purred in his ear, and he didn't bother fighting the huge smile that spread across his face.

"Never mind. Let me up, will you? I wanna say hello back."

She stepped off his chest, letting him take her head in both hands and give her a scratch behind the ears. He pressed his forehead to her nose, humming in time with her purr. "Yeah," he murmured. "I missed you too."

When he looked up, he noticed that there were rather a lot of people staring at them. Vernal was the most immediate danger—she was glaring like he'd just dropped her tent into the river. And yet... Sky made startled eye contact with Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos, who was sitting on Mudslide's back. Staring at him like _he _was the weird one.

"Hey," he said, slightly miffed for some reason he couldn't quite pin down. "Where's—"

The look on her face told him.

"...Oh."

Wait, _what?_ What happened to Titan? And since when were there this many dragons around—

Barracuda snapped at his hair. Tank hummed a greeting and gently tapped his shoulder with his nose. Sky blinked a few times, looking from them, to Mudslide, to Pyrrha. Now that he was paying more attention, he recognized a _lot _of his old classmates.

"Okay," he said slowly. "What the hell?"

"I think that's our line," Russel said, slapping him hard on the back. "Dude. How long have you been living with some secret bandit society without telling us?"

"Pretty much since I punched out Cardin." Sky tried to get up, but Mudslide pushed him back down with her nose. "Oof. Seriously though, what are you all doing here? How'd you even _find _this place?"

"Rrak-nar," Mudslide said.

"That explains jack and shit. What—"

Cyclone screeched. The babble of conversation died immediately, and Vernal's voice cut into the resulting silence. "You can catch up later," she snapped. "After we decide what we're going to do with you. Follow me. _Now."_

Mudslide growled. "Nno," she said, putting a paw down on Sky's stomach. He hadn't been planning on trying to get away, anyway. Well, not from Mudslide. With the way Vernal was glaring at him...

"Fine," she gritted out. "You, stay." She jabbed a finger at Mudslide. "Everyone else—"

"Can we stay too?" Russel asked. "He's our teammate."

"Not anymore." Her lip curled. "Do whatever you want, I don't care. The rest of you, get a move on."

It took a moment for Pyrrha to shake herself out of her daze and slide off Mudslide's back. Jaune linked a hand with hers as she moved away, both swinging between them as they followed Vernal further into the camp.

And then there were six.

"So," Sky scratched Mudslide under the chin. "What's new?"

Russel looked at Dove for a moment, then snorted. The snort turned into a laugh, which went on _much _too long.

"Shit," he said, once he'd gotten his breath back. "Where do I even _start?"_

* * *

Vernal led them to a tent in the center of the camp. It was bigger than all the others, cut from canvas that had once been a stark, intimidating black. Now it was faded grey in places, torn or patched in others. A symbol had been painted across the front in red, though by now it was hard to make out exactly what it was supposed to be. Yang squinted at it. It seemed familiar...

"Oh, shit," Sun said, in a very conspicuous whisper. "They really _did_ take us to their leader." Blake elbowed him in the ribs.

Vernal disappeared inside, leaving them to stand in front of the tent in a confused clump. There were others watching them. Almost everyone in the camp was armed, and almost all of them stood next to a dragon. Yang was put a little at ease by the fact that there was no way they were working for the council—she could see a fire dragon who was missing both of its horns, and a water dragon whose vacant stare suggested it might be blind.

_Ragnar said it was safe,_ she told herself. Probably. Assuming Ruby was right about what Storm had been trying to tell them, and Storm hadn't misunderstood Ragnar. And that they were actually in the right place.

Before she could get too nervous, the tent flap was pushed aside. A woman stepped out, holding a mask loosely in one hand, propping the other against her hip. For a second, Yang couldn't breathe. She stared at the tangled black hair that stuck up in the exact same places hers did. The rounded nose and chin. The red eyes.

Yang heard gasps from her friends, but she didn't look away from Raven. Both hands curled into fists. She hoped no one would notice them shaking. The silence stretched. Her mind spun, half a hundred things she wanted to say jumbled together until she couldn't speak.

Raven opened her mouth.

Before she could say a word, there was a joyful trumpeting noise from inside the tent. Raven had just enough time to jump out of the way before a beautiful golden fire dragon burst through the doorway and barreled towards her.

Yang froze as the dragon skidded to a halt in front of her. She peered at her curiously, butting her head against her shoulder and sniffing. Then, she licked her face and said, "Ang!"

"Hi, Phoenix." It took a couple tries to get the words out.

The dragon rumbled deep in her throat. She paused briefly to look at the others, and to touch Ruby lightly with her nose. Then she returned her attention to Yang, humming contentedly and huffing out a hot breath that ruffled her hair.

Behind Yang, Fang hissed indignantly. Phoenix reared up in surprise. Then she greeted him, too, her tail curling upwards as she let out an excited bark.

Raven cleared her throat. Immediately Phoenix jerked to attention, sitting on her haunches and giving her rider an apologetic look.

Everything was still tangled up in her head. She couldn't pull out a single question without dragging all the others with it, tumbling around one another until they turned into an incoherent mess. Raven didn't speak either. She just crooked her fingers and jerked her head towards the tent, disappearing inside and indicating that Yang should follow.

Ruby grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Do you want us to wait outside?"

Yang squeezed back. "Definitely not."

She brought only the riders of her team, leaving the rest to mill around outside. Yang winced as she realized that she'd have to explain what was going on to all of them, as soon as she was done here.

The furnishings inside were simple. Just a rug, a small square table, and a sleeping bag in one corner. Raven sat cross-legged on one side of the table, and gestured for them to do the same. When they did, she rested her hands on her knees and spoke for the first time.

"You found me."

"...Yeah. I guess I did."

There was a long silence.

"Not to interrupt," Weiss said, grimacing, "but... who are you, exactly?"

"My mom," Yang explained tersely.

"How did you know where we were?" Raven asked.

Ruby answered that one. "Ragnar told Storm—um, my dragon."

Raven grimaced. "Then I assume Ozpin knows where I am?"

"No." Yang gripped the edge of the table. "He's dead."

"How did it happen?"

Blake shifted uneasily where she sat and said, "The council attacked Beacon. We... weren't sure where else to go."

Raven nodded slowly, as if absorbing that information. "If you're going to stay with us, you'll make yourselves useful. Vernal will make sure you have something to do." She stood up, folded both arms across her chest. A dismissal.

Yang got to her feet, but stayed right where she was. She mirrored Raven's posture. "Seriously? That's it?"

"Was there something else?" Raven's stare was a challenge.

"No." She turned and left the tent, shoving the flap aside with much more force than necessary.

Phoenix swiveled her head around to stare as they left the tent. She sat near Fang, and had obviously just stopped in the middle of a conversation with him.

Yang squared her shoulders and marched towards Vernal. She'd ask what they were supposed to do while they stayed here, and hopefully it would be something they could do _far _away from camp. This was only temporary. Better than being alone in the woods with the council hunting them.

Phoenix made a quizzical noise. Unbidden, Yang's hand reached out to touch her snout as she passed. At least someone wanted to say hello.

* * *

**Quick heads up: After looking at plans I have for future plotlines, I made a minor retcon to chapter 20. Namely, May doesn't make the connection between the voice on the phone and the one she heard at the Vytal festival. I feel like it makes more sense for Cinder to take steps to stay anonymous anyway, since from her perspective the less May knows the better. Also, by minor I mean that I deleted a sentence, so there's no need to go back and reread or anything.**


	23. It's Only Treason if We're Caught

**Hello again! Time to check in on some Professors...**

* * *

**23\. It's Only Treason if We're Caught**

* * *

It was that stupid hatchling.

Justice stalked through the camp, smoke curling from his nostrils. He couldn't stop thinking about that tiny little monster. Was she still alive? Was she cold, all alone in the woods? Hungry? If they'd stayed another day, would the faunus have been able to catch her?

Talking about it with Harbinger was useless. All he would say was that she ran away, she hurt Justice's face, she was a traitor. Justice knew he was probably right, but after a while he couldn't stand hearing it anymore.

Then he sniffed the air and remembered—there was someone else he could talk to. Justice circled around the lab, following his nose to where Brand lay on his back on a flat rock, enjoying the last of the evening sunlight. The human was with him.

Justice hissed quietly and settled onto his haunches to wait. He glared at Hazel, who looked back at him with a mild smile on his face as he scratched Brand behind his horns. The older dragon opened one eye halfway, hummed to acknowledge Justice's presence, then went back to half-dozing.

Hazel stayed there for more than an hour. Justice watched him the whole time, occasionally baring his teeth when the human spoke quietly to Brand. Finally, he gave the dragon a parting pat on the nose and got to his feet. "I'd better ask Sienna if anything needs doing."

Brand made a soft, disappointed noise, sticking his neck out as Hazel walked away.

Justice growled. "Why do you let him do that?"

"I don't know." Brand rolled onto his side, wrapping his tail around himself. "It makes it hurt less."

"He's a human."

Brand hummed, grudgingly accepting the point.

"So how can you trust him?"

"I don't have to." Brand yawned and stretched, powerful claws flexing in the air. "If he starts making it hurt more instead, I'll bite him."

"What do you mean, _if?"_

Brand grumbled and raised his head, looking directly at Justice for the first time. "Most humans are monsters, and we should fight them," he said, like he was a sage imparting great wisdom. "But Hazel is different." He paused, tilting his head slightly to one side. "The singing Schnee isn't all bad, either."

Justice snorted indignantly. He'd heard so much about how brave and strong Brand was from Ilia—but he was starting to suspect the older dragon would call anyone a friend as long as they scratched his ears first. He was slow and groggy, and he hardly ever helped out around the camp. All he wanted to do was sleep. Lazy, trusting... weak.

"You've gone soft without your rider."

Brand's narrowed to slits. He reared up on his hind legs, flaring his wings as he let out an enraged roar. Justice knew him as thin and sickly, had seen him lumbering along under the weight of his load of lab equipment with his head hanging low. Now he was upright, muscles standing out in his neck and chest, his claws biting deep into the stone.

Justice bolted, craning his neck to look over his shoulder. Brand didn't chase him. He just stood there, fire flickering between his jaws, watching.

_All bark, _Justice thought, disgusted. _No bite._

* * *

The room was windowless. Four walls, heavy cinder block, painted a dull off-white color. One door, thick, barred from the outside. A table, two chairs and two cots. They'd been allowed to stay in the same room—the council obviously didn't think they'd be able to escape, even if they had time to plan together.

Peter had to agree with them on that. He turned on his heel and paced the length of the cell, straining his ears. Almost an hour ago, he'd thought he'd heard a cry from outside. Maybe it was just his imagination... but if Pepper was calling him, he couldn't miss it. He would listen. He owed her that much.

Glynda sat at the table. Motionless. Sometimes she looked up and followed his pacing, back and forth across the room, her eyes slightly unfocused. Listless.

Nautilus couldn't call for her anymore.

Squaring his jaw, Peter took a seat opposite her. He couldn't afford to give up—and that meant focusing on those that weren't lost yet. Pepper, Glynda... maybe Ragnar. He hadn't seen him fall, but he had trouble imagining him leaving the battle willingly.

It was a short list, if he left like that... so he didn't. He forced himself to go through every student and every dragon that had gotten away while the faculty bought time. Barty and Gust, Ozpin, Nautilus... they'd all done their duty. Now it was his turn.

"Glynda?"

She glanced up. Said nothing.

"I know this is difficult." He cleared his throat, feeling intensely awkward. Barty should have been the one doing this. "I can't imagine..."

"Thank you for trying, Peter, but I'd prefer to skip this conversation if it's all the same to you."

"I will _not _desist. As dark as things are, we mustn't give up—"

"Who said anything about giving up?" she snapped. He'd never been so happy to be glared at. "I'm functional. Anything better than that can wait until we've gotten out of here."

"Ah." Peter blinked a few times. He didn't _quite_ understand how Glynda's mind worked even in the best of circumstances, which these certainly weren't. He'd expected more... well... more. Bursts of rage, despondence, a fist shaken at the sky... instead he felt a certain nostalgia for the dragonry's annual budget meetings.

It would have to do.

He cleared his throat and said, "I don't suppose you've come up with any ideas?"

"A few." She glanced at the door—and there was the piercing stare that had been missing. "It'll have to involve their _creatures." _Her lip curled. "We don't exactly have the time to tunnel our way to freedom with a toothpick."

"Though we don't lack the determination for it!"

Glynda pinched the bridge of her nose.

The 'creature,' as Glynda had described her, arrived sometime later. Without either a clock or a window, it was hard to guess how long. They had been paid periodic visits from uniformed members of Vale's military, but they were mostly low-level recruits who were only there to give them food and a few beaten up paperbacks. This one was clearly different—she wore an insignia on her shoulder, and carried herself with the air of someone who was used to having her orders followed. Peter offered her his seat, and received a poisonous glare in return.

"I'm sure you know why I'm here."

A smirk spread slowly across Glynda's face. "You can't find them." She put a hand down flat on the tabletop. "Excellent."

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Peter Port. Come with me." He stood up, smiling and nodding to Glynda as he left—it was the best reassurance he could muster.

Peter was led down a hallway and into another, smaller room. He sat, sipped the coffee that had been left for him. The woman that had brought him there left without another word.

He spent a long time waiting. The coffee turned stone cold, and he thought he heard another noise outside that might have been Pepper. The chair turned out to be intensely uncomfortable. He got up and paced some more.

The woman caught him at it as she reentered the room. She glared pointedly at the chair until he sat down, then followed suit.

"I am Sargent Maise."

"Peter Port. Professor at Beacon Dragonry."

"Not anymore."

He shrugged. "I suspected I wouldn't be."

Maise watched him for a moment. "Well," she said, "I'd like to talk about where you plan to go from here."

"Meaning?"

"Whether you face criminal charges, or go into quiet retirement in the country somewhere, is entirely up to you." Maise gestured at the empty mug. "More coffee? Tea? We only have vending machine food, unfortunately."

"I'd like to see Pepper."

"Your dragon." Maise tapped her fingers on the table, giving him a frighteningly unreadable look. "I might be able to arrange that."

Ah. Here it was.

"I've just been talking to your colleague. We'd like you to confirm what she's told us about the rogue students. If your stories match up, we can make you both much more comfortable."

Peter smiled sadly. "Not very convincing."

"Excuse me?"

"Your _rapscallions _just killed her partner." Both his hands clenched into fists. "You attacked our students and their dragons. If you _did _talk to Glynda... I expect she told you to go to hell."

Maise scowled, but her small sigh made him think that she'd expected that answer. "Very well." She got to her feet and stopped at the door. "I'll speak to the higher ups. I think I can convince them to let you stand outside with Pepper during the procedure."

The word fell like an anvil on something fragile in his chest. It wasn't the meaning itself—he'd known since the council stormed Beacon that this was a possibility. It was the casual way she said it, like it was an afterthought.

Peter braced himself against the table. Maise had to lead him outside by the arm, pulling him back to the other room.

Glynda was talking. Her hand came down on his shoulder, partly shielding him from Maise. "...can't be that much more difficult to guard another unarmed professor," she snapped, "and I suspect none of _you_ want to deal with the aftermath. You never do."

"Fine." Maise waved her hand dismissively. "I'll suggest that you stand with him." She gave each of them a long, searching look. "I'll be back tomorrow morning. That will be your last chance to show more cooperation than you have today."

Then she was gone. Peter fell into one of the chairs, with Glynda rubbing soothing circles on his back. He couldn't speak. It was too much—too wrong that _she _was the one comforting _him._

"I'm sorry," he said, staring blankly at the surface of the table.

"No regrets," Glynda snapped. "Not for this. Not _ever,_ understand?"

Peter gritted his teeth, and nodded.

* * *

A metal index finger tapped one corner of the page. Then it slid underneath it, flipping to the next.

_Dragonmaster Ozpin was killed by an unknown sniper during the inspection, at which point his dragon attacked council representatives. Faculty members and their dragons joined the violence, as did many students. Army personnel defended themselves and council representatives._

_Many rogue students fled the premises. Information regarding the whereabouts of..._

James skimmed over the list of names.

_Professors Glynda Goodwitch and Peter Port have been taken into custody, along with the fire dragon Pepper. Culling is to be carried out as soon as possible, pending written confirmation from the Department of Draconic Affairs..._

James skimmed through the rest of the report, but it never mentioned Nautilus or Ragnar. Neither would have abandoned their riders. He stared at the page for a long moment. Then, softly, "Damn it."

He reread the document, more thoroughly this time, but there were no more answers to be found. No indication of who had shot Ozpin. Only the same list of wanted teenagers, a thorough report of every injury sustained by the council's soldiers... and a small paragraph listing Ozpin, Bartholomew, Gust, and Nautilus as deceased. No mention of Ragnar. Did that mean the council had captured him? _Why? _There was no mention in the report—

James stopped when he noticed a small parenthetical that he'd previously skipped over. It was the address of a detention facility in southern Vale where the "dangerous rogue professors" were detained.

A hand came up to rub his temple. Ozpin was gone. Leo had lost what little sway he had with the council. Shade still hadn't changed its policy of sending deformed hatchlings to the pits. It was _vital _that he keep his position in Atlas.

_Culling is to be carried out as soon as possible..._

He picked up his scroll.

"Sir?"

"Specialist Schnee. I'd like to speak with you for a moment."

She was prompt, as always. His office door opened minutes later.

James tapped the report. "The official word on what happened at Beacon just came in. There's a list of students that escaped the school. I thought you should know... your sister is on it."

"What?" Winter took a half-step forward before visibly smothering the impulse to look at a confidential report and read for herself. "Specter isn't deformed."

"No. Neither is Storm, the dragon that Penny bonded to." He waved a hand helplessly. "I can only assume they followed one or both of their teammates."

"Is that all, sir?"

James paused. Winter had tensed as though she was anticipating something unpleasant. A _fight, _even. Why—_ah._

"I won't ask you to look for them." _I wouldn't do that to you. _"Conflict of interest."

She kept her face mostly neutral, but he saw her shoulders relax. "Of course."

Silence fell. She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, while James stared blankly at the report in his hand. There'd be no going back from this. It was an idiotic risk, when things were already at a breaking point...

But he'd never been very good at sitting back and doing nothing.

"Winter. Could you get a message to your sister?"

"Yes. Why?"

"The report included an address where two Beacon professors and one of their dragons are being held. The dragon is slated to be culled."

"I don't see the connection."

He told her the address.

Winter watched him for a long moment. "That would be treason. Sir."

"Which is why it's a request, and not an order." He set the report down on his desk with a heavy sigh. "There aren't _many _ways this information might leak, but I think the council will suspect espionage before they look at us." Students had gotten their hands on Leo's letters to and from the council, after all.

"Why involve Weiss?"

"My hands are tied." He gestured out the window, at the Atlas Dragonry's campus. "I have my own students to protect. But... there over two dozen rogue students listed in that report. It makes sense that some of them would stick together."

"So they take the risk instead," she said flatly.

James grimaced. "I never said I liked it, but... they can't exactly be branded as rogues twice."

"They're children."

"They're being hunted. There's every chance they'll decide it's too dangerous... but we can give them the choice."

"It's not much of a choice," Winter said, her eyes fixed on the report.

_Culling is to be carried out as soon as possible..._

"No. It isn't."

* * *

Dusk.

People came and went. Some of them spoke to her. She didn't hear her own replies—all she knew was that they were polite. Twiggy curled protectively around her, her tail twining in Pyrrha's lap. Jaune sat beside her and held her hand.

She didn't want to be comforted. She wanted more than anything to go _back,_ because she knew that this horrible numbness was supposed to be temporary. A moment of shock before it became real. Only Mudslide had taken her away, and now she was staring blankly at the ground, thinking that if she'd checked just one more time she would have found that he was badly hurt, but alive.

The others gathered around the three of them as they finished the work Vernal had given them, cross-legged on the hard ground. For a long while, no one said anything.

Ruby broke the silence. "I'm sorry," she said, her eyes on her hands as they twined around one another. "For riding Twiggy."

Jaune shook his head. "Don't. It's... it's fine."

Silence.

Weiss' scroll went off. When she pulled it out and checked the screen, her shoulders went rigid. She lifted it to her ear and said in a hushed tone, "Winter?"

Everyone tensed.

"I understand."

"You _know _I can't do that."

Her eyes widened. "I—I'll think about it." She slid the scroll shut, then started searching frantically for something.

"Um..." Yang said. "Care to share with the class?"

"Hush."

There was another pause, this one heavy with curiosity. Finally Weiss seemed to find what she was looking for and went very still. "I... I think my sister just committed treason."

Nora craned her neck to try and see the screen.

"Excuse me, what?" demanded Scarlet.

"She sent me an email through the company database—which, incidentally, probably means that our calls and messages are being monitored—and... well, look." She passed the scroll to Ruby, who fumbled and almost dropped it.

"They're going to kill Pepper?!"

Pyrrha didn't join the rush of people fighting to see the message. Eventually they backed off, and the basic details were shared. Professor Goodwitch and Professor Port. An address. An imminent culling. No mention of Nautilus or Ragnar.

"We have to do something," Ruby said, already on her feet. "It's not even that far away, we could be there and back before the sun came up."

"Uh... okay." Neptune looked around. "So, wait, are we just gonna—? What if it's a trap?"

"What are you suggesting, exactly?" Weiss snapped.

"Nothing!" He held his hands up. "Just that, you know, it's dangerous!"

"But... it's Pepper!" Ruby said.

And that was that. They couldn't abandon their professors when they'd gotten into this mess protecting them.

They would fly. Pyrrha and Jaune couldn't, so they would be left behind. Sky and what remained of team CRDL volunteered to join them, as did Emerald and Mercury. Supplies were gathered, saddles and tack were adjusted, and half of them were mounted before Raven noticed them leaving.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Ruby stumbled through the explanation, adding emphatic hand-gestures and pointing to Weiss a few times. "We can't just let them kill her!"

Raven stared at them, her lip curling. "Amateurs," she spat. "You _don't _use your scroll when you're being hunted. _Ever._ The council can track them. Take the batteries out—turning them off is _not _enough."

"But—"

"We're moving." She glanced at the group of riders, already in the saddle. "If you're going to insist on throwing yourselves into a fight like this, that's on your own heads. We'll break camp and move west."

She turned on her heel and marched away. Within minutes, the rest of them were gone, and tents were coming down everywhere Pyrrha looked.

They marched. Pyrrha followed blindly after Jaune and Twiggy. It wasn't until the sky started to lighten behind them that the tribe finally stopped to sleep. They had both thrown away their supplies, and hadn't thought to ask any of their friends for a spare tent. Twiggy rumbled quietly and tucked them under her wing.

It was warm. Dark. Pyrrha squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the powerful heartbeat against her back, and for a horrible, glowing instant she let herself pretend.

Jaune broke her out of the moment, squeezing her hand lightly in his own. "It's just us," he said softly. "If you want to... if..."

Something in her chest cracked. The moment the fault appeared, it widened under the pressure until everything came crashing down. Her breath hitched. Then she curled her knees against her chest as her whole body was wracked with violent, trembling sobs.

Every passing second she was sure it had peaked, and every second the ache in her chest intensified. She tensed, hugging her arms around her stomach and pressing down, trying to compress herself into the smallest possible space. She didn't notice the turning point, the moment where the sobs turned into quiet hiccups. She only noticed when her body went limp with exhaustion. Vaguely, she registered that Jaune had wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and Twiggy had stuck her head under her wing to nuzzle against her side.

It had been a long time since she'd let herself come apart like that, even in private. The relief that normally came with breaking down was absent. The dam had burst, the plains had flooded, but the pressure in her chest hadn't eased. At least for now, she was too tired to care.


	24. Here Comes the Cavalry

**Hi! Who's up for some aerial shenanigans, Beacon Professors, and Fang and Huo getting in touch with their inner pyromaniacs?**

* * *

**24\. Here Comes the Cavalry**

* * *

Pepper fought every step of the way. She wouldn't eat the drugged meat, and when one of the soldiers approached her with a needle, she struggled hard enough to snap one of the thick tungsten chains on her legs.

By the time Glynda saw her, they'd gotten her back under control. Her head was locked in metal ring, keeping it fixed ahead, while a set of blinders kept her from seeing Peter. The two professors were forbidden from speaking, lest the dragon hear them.

Useless. She smelled Peter and fought all the harder, but the flaw in her bonds had been repaired. She couldn't move.

Glynda grabbed Peter's shoulder. He stared directly ahead, heedless of the tear tracks on his face, his lips moving soundlessly. As she stared at the blank grey sky, something caught her eye—a flash of movement in the clouds over the nearby Emerald Forest.

A soldier came with another needle, careful to keep out of Pepper's line of sight. Peter's breathing hitched. Maybe that warned her, because she let out a distressed whine that was muffled by the muzzle. Then the sedative took hold. Muscles in her shoulders that had strained against the chains went slack. The whine turned into a soft, contented rumble.

Glynda tried to guide Peter's face away from the scene, but he wouldn't be moved. She dropped it, understanding the impulse—the need to be together in this last moment.

Another soldier approached, this one carrying the gun with the spike that would end Pepper's life. Glynda gritted her teeth and watched. She refused to look away when Peter would not. On the horizon, the flash of movement resolved itself into what looked like a flock of birds.

The spike was loaded. Glynda stared at the winged shapes as they grew larger, her mouth falling slightly open. Too big to be birds. _Qrow?_ But he was supposed to watch the school—and where in Remnant would he have found _that _many riders?

The gun was raised.

"Wait!" Glynda held up a hand. "I remembered something."

"Thought we told you to shut up," the executioner snapped. Pepper's tail twitched drowsily at the noise. The flock of dragons dipped over the crest of a hill, skimming just above the trees. A good idea—even knowing they were there, she had a hard time picking them out now that they weren't silhouetted against the sky.

Sargent Maise stepped out of the crowd of onlookers, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Delaying isn't going to do any good."

"I might know where they are."

She felt Peter tense, an expression flashing across his face that was part betrayal, part relief. Glynda ignored it—whether her plan worked or not, he'd understand in a few seconds. The dragons were closer, now. She hesitated, as though grappling with her conscience.

"Well?" Maise prompted, irritated.

Glynda could pinpoint the instant the man on watch noticed them. He had been focusing most of his attention on the proceedings below, casting only occasional glances towards the horizon. Now he froze, his head turned in their direction...

"About a hundred yards behind you," she said, and pointed.

* * *

This, right here—diving down at the compound, the wind screaming in her ears, feeling Freya's muscles flex beneath her as she shouted, "Charge!" at the top of her lungs—this was what Nora had signed up for. She whooped and cheered as they leveled off, circling over the heads of the group of soldiers.

Soldiers that were now fumbling for their guns. That was something they should probably fix.

She tapped Freya lightly on the back of the neck, and she swooped over the group's heads. As she flapped, a gust of wind tore most of them off their feet.

It was chaos. All according to plan—with more than a dozen dragons shrieking and diving at the soldiers, they were too busy running for cover to line up a shot. The few that did manage to take aim were discouraged with blasts of wind and water.

Specter and Fang, meanwhile, got to work on the chains binding Pepper. Each took turns using their powers, heating and freezing the metal until Pit could pull the weakened link apart. It took less than a minute to free her, but already the soldiers were starting to regroup.

The last chain snapped. Nora heard a gun go off and felt her heart leap into her throat—but there was no cry of pain. Miss. The one who had fired adjusted his aim, pointing the rifle right at Pepper. Rudder pounced on him, grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him into the air. He dropped the gun and swore at the top of his lungs. About ten feet up he dropped him. He was left sprawled on the ground, dazed and disarmed, but alive.

Nora was about to urge Freya to try the same trick, but before she could she heard an enraged roar from the other side of the compound. A bulky water dragon barreled around the corner, a council rider snapping a whip against its side as it ran.

"Okay, time to go!" Ruby shouted. "Pepper—"

But Pepper wasn't moving. Her eyes were half-lidded, and her tail curled lazily in the heap of broken chains. Fang pawed frantically at her side, but she didn't stir. They'd already hit her with the sedative.

The council dragon was almost on them, now. She guided Freya into a steep dive and landed at Goodwitch's feet. "Hi Professor," she said breathlessly, leaning down to offer her a hand. She took it, and Nora hauled her into the saddle behind her.

Across the field, Scarlet did the same for Port. A clump of dragons and their riders formed around Pepper—Pit, Specter, Storm, and Jade. Ruby jumped out of the saddle, and the others followed her lead. Nora _really _hoped they had a plan.

Fang took off running towards the council dragon, which was caught in a furious brawl with Huo. He collided with it, almost knocking it over, and all three of them wrestled while the rider tried to hit Yang and Sun with his whip.

Not something Nora could help with. Freya couldn't do much with two people on board, and they were still stuck on the ground. Before she could think too much about that, she caught a glimpse of a soldier pointing a gun at her and yelped. Guang dropped on his head, knocking him to the ground and roaring. He grabbed the rifle in his jaws and pawed at it until the barrel bent under the pressure.

Nora glanced back at Pepper. Storm hauled on a chain that was wrapped around her and, impossibly, the two of them rose several inches off the ground. For a second she was convinced she _had _to be seeing things, until she saw Pit. He watched both of them intently, his freckles glowing bright silver. Ruby and Blake each climbed onto Jade and Specter, ready to take off.

They were so _close,_ but most of them were still grounded. More soldiers poured out of the building, and Nora heard the cry of another dragon. She twisted in her saddle, looking for something, anything_—there!_

A small staircase led to a door on the second floor of the building. Nora urged Freya upwards, clinging tightly to Professor Goodwitch and the saddle as they made the final climb from the top of the staircase to the roof.

There wasn't much room to run... but Freya launched herself off the roof and flapped hard, and managed to stay airborne. She circled the building twice while the others followed her lead—all except Pit and Storm, who had the help of his powers. They veered north, aiming to get over the woods as quickly as possible. Nora craned her neck to look behind them and shouted, "What about Sun and Yang?"

Ruby, who was only about twenty feet away on Jade, heard her over the wind. "They'll catch up!" she called back.

Nora caught a final glimpse of the two dragons wheeling in the air... and a third, much larger one that had just launched itself from the rooftop.

* * *

Zircon trembled underneath him. Sage stroked his back as they flew, turning frequently in the saddle to look behind them. The council dragon hadn't tried to follow—Yang and Sun were obviously doing their jobs distracting it.

He grimaced, trying not to let the anxiety eat away at him. There was enough to worry about right in front of him—they were only a few minutes away from the council's detention center, and already Pit and Storm were struggling to hold up Pepper.

Their descent happened painfully slowly. Pit's powers flickered on and off. Every time it happened, Storm dipped into a sharp glide, then did her best to gain altitude once they came back on. Soon they were skimming just above the treetops, and Ruby finally called it—pointing downward.

Under the trees and out of the wind, everything seemed strangely hushed. The air smelled like clean earth, and cool shadows covered the ground. For an instant Sage felt as though he and Scarlet had never left their clearing at Beacon.

Pit collapsed onto his stomach. Blake climbed gingerly off Specter's back to soothe him, murmuring praise as she scratched behind his ears. Ruby spoiled Storm, too, who was barely keeping her own paws under her. Jade stretched her wings, winced, and sat down heavily.

"Okay," Neptune said, into the silence. "Now what? 'Cause we're _definitely _not far enough away."

"Could we do shifts?" Scarlet suggested. Then he looked at Pepper—she was almost twice the size of most of their dragons, and probably weighed more than every single rider combined. There was no way they were getting her off the ground again without Pit's powers. "Okay, stupid question..."

"I don't think we need to," Ruby said. "The dragon is distracted—" she shot a worried glance over her shoulder, "—and we've got an okay head start. We could just walk."

"Um... can Pepper walk?" Nora glanced over to where Port was kneeling by her head, gently stroking her brow.

"Not for a little while," he said, distracted. She purred at his touch, the sound coming out a little slurred.

"Okay." Ruby ran a hand through her hair. "Okay, um..."

Sage patted Zircon's neck. "We could hide the three of them," he suggested, gesturing at their professors and Pepper. "Then... they could meet up with Yang and Sun when the sedative starts to wear off."

No one had any better ideas, so Zircon, Mudslide, and Jade all set to work. They dug out the side of a small hill, leaving just enough space for Goodwitch, Port, and a curled up Pepper.

"Right." Ruby crouched down at the entrance. "If you can't find the others, I have directions to Raven's camp. She won't be there, but if you go west you should run into her." She fumbled in her pocket, took out a scrap of paper. "Um... okay, just gimme a—"

"Here." Goodwitch took it, stared at it for a few seconds, and handed it back. "I'll remember."

Sage and Emerald dragged branches over the opening the earth dragons had left until it was completely invisible. By then Pit was back on his feet, though his tail hung like a limp rope behind him. With him and Storm both exhausted, and Blake still limping a little, their progress was painfully slow.

Neptune glanced up at the sky. "They should be back by now."

"Stop that," Scarlet said. "They'll be fine. I mean, can you imagine trying to deal with Huo _and _Fang at the same time?"

Sage noticed that Ruby had tensed up. She walked with one hand on Storm's shoulder, looking at the sky more often than where she was putting her feet. He followed her gaze, watching clouds drift lazily by overhead, wishing more than anything that he could see what was happening to the two that had stayed behind.

They'd be alright. They had to be.

* * *

_"This is not okay!" _Sun screamed at the top of his lungs as Huo dove behind the wall of the compound to avoid a blast of water. He huffed in annoyance—why did his partner have to be so loud when he was trying to concentrate?

Below them, a second council dragon clambered up the stairs. This one was an earth dragon built like a brick wall, flaring his wings in anticipation as he lumbered after them. Huo wasn't too concerned—he was big, but he was also slow. It was the riders, and the soldiers on the ground, that worried him.

"We have to distract them," he roared at Fang.

"Duh." The other dragon swept low over the heads of several soldiers, whipping his tail against their guns and sending them flying. Then he circled higher, blowing smoke. "How, genius?"

Huo hissed and rolled in midair to avoid another blast of water. The earth dragon took off an flapped towards him. He dived at the bigger dragon, shrieking furiously, but veered off to one side when Sun tugged on the reins.

_Wimp._ Huo could take him.

Then the water dragon tried to break away and pursue the others. Huo and Fang both converged on her, snapping at the rider who hunkered down against her saddle. He snapped his whip at Fang's face, making him roar in pain and drop halfway to the ground before he recovered. Huo chomped down on the water dragon's tail, and both of them spiraled towards the ground. He let go just in time to stay in the air. Her paws skimmed the ground, but she clawed at the air with her wings and followed him back into the sky.

The important thing was that she was following _him,_ not Pepper. For now, anyway. In a couple hours Pepper would be able to pin a whelp like this with one paw. He said as much, she screeched in outrage and shot another blast of water at him. This one hit, though he rolled in midair to protect Sun from the worst of it.

Bruised and slightly dazed, Huo had to grab onto the side of the compound to keep himself from falling. He dug in with his claws, leaving a long rent in the walls. Above him, Fang roared defiantly and dive bombed the water dragon's rider, tearing the whip from the man's hand.

He came too close to a clump of soldiers. Several shots rang out—most missed, but one found its mark.

Huo leaped from the side of the building as Fang spiraled towards the ground, sweeping over the heads of the soldiers with fury bubbling up in his stomach. He spat, and a ball of flame crashed into the middle of their group. They scattered. One woman ripped off her uniform jacket, slapping frantically at a bit of flame licking up the sleeve.

"Whoa!" Sun's hands tightened on the reins. "Okay, I don't like them either but how about we _don't _set them on fire?"

Fang stabilized in the air and climbed higher to keep out of range, holding one of his forelegs awkwardly against his stomach. Something in Huo's chest unclenched.

Then Fang shot him a challenging glare and dove towards the compound. He made several passes before he managed to shoot fire at the roof. Huo heard Sun swear softly as he took up the challenge, spitting flames at anything that looked important.

All of a sudden, the soldiers were too busy trying to put out the fire to aim their rifles. The water dragon ran out of water halfway through dealing with the blaze Fang had started on the roof, and flew towards a small pond just before the treeline. The earth dragon smothered a burning car with dirt.

Sun tugged on the reins. Huo grumbled a bit—it was exciting watching them scramble around, and he wasn't hurting the _people. _Just the stuff they'd need to chase after them. And the building they were using to kill dragons. Really, he was doing a service!

Another, more insistent tug. Fang had already veered northward. Huo followed reluctantly, pausing only to hawk a last, spiteful fireball at the compound as he passed over it. The shouting of the council soldiers—and the smell of smoke—soon faded into the distance.

Once they were a few minutes' flight away, they touched down in a small clearing. Fang growled as he hit the ground, stumbling a little and favoring his right foreleg. Yang slid out of the saddle so fast she almost fell over. He hissed when she tried to touch it, then relaxed when she gave him a soothing pat on the shoulder.

Huo leaned in to see, only for her to shove his head aside. He squawked indignantly.

"Okay." Her hands shook. "Okay. What the hell do I do?"

Sun, who had just dismounted, winced at the sight. "Wow. Uh... that is a _very_ good question."

Huo rolled his eyes and butted them both out of the way so he could lick the wound clean. Fang hissed at him. Huo flicked him with his tail.

"There has to be a doctor or something at R—at the camp," Yang said. "I don't think we can do much with what we've got right now."

"Right." Sun glanced around. "Uh... see anywhere we can...?"

"Cliff," she said, pointing. "That way. Saw it when we were landing."

They started moving—Yang and Sun on foot, Fang limping along on three legs. "Those dragons are such wimps," he grumbled. "Won't even fight without a bunch of guns backing them up."

Huo growled agreement. They kept walking in dappled shade. Once, far in the distance, they heard the deep-throated bellow of an earth dragon. Fang sped up, wincing with every step.

"Do you think they got away with Pepper?" he asked, after a long moment.

"'Course. We didn't let the dragons leave, so they couldn't have caught them."

Fang's tail curled upward. "So... we won."

Huo blinked. Then, slowly, he looked at the other dragon. "Yeah. We won."

Fang's neck arched as he preened, and Huo mirrored the motion. Months and months of all the grown dragons talking themselves horse about how dangerous the council was, and how they had to keep their heads down and behave until they were older. And now, they just _beat _them!

"We should have started doing this a long time ago," Huo decided.

Despite his hobbled leg, Fang purred agreement. The sound hitched partway through, turning into a growl. "We won," he repeated. "So we keep fighting them, and we keep winning. Make them wish they'd never come to Beacon."

Huo's claws flexed, biting deep into the forest floor. "No. We'll make 'em wish they'd never joined the council in the first place."


	25. Just Like Mending Trousers

**Hello all!**

**Believe it or not, this is about the 20% mark. One fifth. So like... at this pace, roughly another year or so.**

**I actually had to break my outline into smaller pieces because my word processor kept crashing. So yeah, I've got a lot planned. Some of which I am _very _excited for... *devious laughter***

* * *

**25\. Just Like Mending Trousers**

* * *

"Um..."

Oscar pulled two fistfuls of lien cards out of his pockets and laid them on the counter. "How much can I buy with this?"

Katrina, the butcher, slid the pile towards her. Then she stared at him for a long moment, one eyebrow slowly rising until it disappeared behind her bangs.

He felt his face heat up. "We're... having a barbecue."

The eyebrow stayed raised. She flicked through the cards—Oscar's entire life savings, earned from lending a hand at neighbors' farms. "More 'n you can carry," she said, once she'd counted them all.

"One moment!" He backed out of the shop and returned with a wheelbarrow he'd brought from home.

"Uh-_huh."_

He smiled innocently and tried to surreptitiously wipe the sweat off his palms. Katrina gave him another suspicious look, then shrugged. "What kind you want?"

"Um... some of everything?"

Katrina disappeared into a back room. She came back with a slab of frozen beef and placed it on the counter.

"Thank you," he said, picking it up with some difficulty and dumping it into the wheelbarrow.

She laughed. "I'm not even close to done, kid."

Seven trips later, Oscar finally left the shop with a wheelbarrow heaped high with frozen meat, hoping it wouldn't look too much like he was trying to dispose of a body. He glanced furtively around, then laid an old tarp over the barrow.

It took hours to wrestle the stupid thing into the woods. The sky was clear, the day sunny and warm, and before long the meat started to thaw. He gagged a little at the smell—it wasn't going off or anything, but there was a _lot _of it. Finally he reached the right section of forest, found the cracked treetops.

"Ragnar?"

The dragon's massive head rose up from behind a clump of bushes. He tilted it to one side, staring warily at the wheelbarrow. Oscar grinned and pulled away the tarp with a flourish. "I brought food!"

The dragon's neck stretched towards Oscar, one of his feet buckling as he lunged. When Oscar pushed the barrow closer, he stuck his head inside and dug in. Minutes later, all that was left was an off-putting red stain at the bottom of the wheelbarrow.

"Wow," Oscar breathed.

Ragnar flopped onto his side and curled into a ball. "Gud..."

"Okay." Oscar stuffed shaking hands in his pockets. "Okay, now... can I see your wing?"

The dragon obligingly stretched out his wing, exposing the tears in the membrane. Oscar winced, then slowly drew a small black box from his pocket. "I want to help."

Ragnar blinked a few times. Then Oscar opened the box, showing its contents. The dragon made a displeased noise, but lay his head down on the ground and twitched the wing, as if offering it to Oscar.

He knelt down next to one wingtip and chewed his lip. There was one tear that was smaller than most of the others, only about as long as his index finger. He decided to start there. Threaded the needle...

"Just like mending trousers, Oscar," he told himself. Then, wincing, he started to close the tears. "Yeah," he mumbled under his breath. "I'm just poking a dragon with a needle. Everything is fine."

Ragnar stayed remarkably still while he worked, watching him. Sometimes his tail twitched when the needle accidentally poked a sensitive spot. Oscar was mostly just glad that he seemed to understand what stitches were, because there was _no way _he could have gotten him to stay put for this otherwise.

Several hours later, he was finished. He put the sewing kit away and wiped his brow with a trembling hand. A soft sigh of relief escaped him.

Slowly, Ragnar lifted the wing. Stretched. He hummed, sounding satisfied, and folded it against his back. "Good?" Oscar asked.

The dragon limped closer, until they were almost nose to nose. "Gud," he said, and snorted, ruffling Oscar's hair.

"Um." Oscar fumbled for something to say. "I don't know if I can get you meat like that again. Is there something else I could...?"

"Hay."

Oscar's shoulders slumped with relief. "Oh, good. That I can definitely do."

Ragnar made a low rumbling noise. It sounded like it had come from somewhere in his chest—the kind of sound that was felt more than heard. Oscar stopped breathing. The deep grey eyes stared into him. Slowly, he raised a hand and offered it, palm-up. Ragnar sniffed once, then gently pressed his nose against it.

"Ozzz... Scarrr..."

The grey-brown scales were warm to the touch, and softer than he'd expected. Reverently, Oscar stroked Ragnar's nose, craning his neck to look up into the dragon's eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I saw... I mean..."

Ragnar's eyes fluttered closed. He whined softly, curling his tail around himself.

Oscar rubbed the back of one hand over his face and sniffled. "They said all the students got away. You saved them."

"Nno..." Ragnar lay his head down on his paws. "Uh... Uh-thurrr way."

Other way? Other way around...

_They saved me._

* * *

It took a long time for the storm to settle. Jaune rubbed Pyrrha's back and murmured soothing nonsense, while Twiggy nuzzled at her side. Eventually, she went limp.

Twiggy curled her tail tighter around the two humans, her wings folded over their heads. Keeping them safe... A low keening sound tore from her. Safe had been Ragnar perched at the top of Beacon tower, Pepper and Gust and Nautilus patrolling the grounds. Safe had been playing in the grass with Zircon and Pit before any of them knew what 'culling' meant. Safe was Titan watching over her.

All Twiggy could hear was the humans' soft breathing. Gently, she lifted her wing enough to see that their eyes were closed, their heads resting against each other. Even asleep, there was a pained look on Pyrrha's face.

When had they gotten so much smaller than her?

She wanted to go back. She wanted to be small enough to hide under Jaune's shirt, to be comforted and told it was all just a bad dream. But being small was the problem—too small, too slow, couldn't take off with Jaune.

The same moment, on a loop. Leaping from the end of the ramp and finding he was just too heavy. She couldn't do it. Over and over again, and Pyrrha and Titan just wouldn't _leave..._ if Jaune had a better dragon, Titan would still be here.

Twiggy wished she could wake them up. She whimpered quietly, missing the way Jaune would scratch behind her ears and make everything better... but they needed to rest. So she lay her head down beside Pyrrha and blanketed them with her wing, and marveled at how fragile they looked like this.

That was what had _really _changed. Their riders, their professors, even Ragnar... they weren't all-powerful anymore. They kept getting hurt.

Pyrrha's breathing hitched. She furrowed her brow, her fingers twitching in her sleep. Twiggy pressed her head against her side and purred until she relaxed again. Then she sighed, ruffling strands of red hair.

It was her job to protect Jaune. Like it had been Titan's to protect Pyrrha. Twiggy curled up a little tighter, cradling both humans between her paws. They were _hers, _she decided. She'd look after Pyrrha for her brother, and keep them both safe. Maybe that would be enough to make it up to him.

The humans slept until it was almost sunset. Then Twiggy spotted two winged shadows sweeping down towards the camp, and recognized Huo and Fang. She reared her head up and barked at them. Jaune jumped, hit his head on her shoulder, and blinked groggily. Pyrrha just opened her eyes, staring blankly at the approaching dragons.

"Wait..." Jaune sat up. "Where's...?"

"Need help!" Sun shouted, jumping off Huo's back the moment they touched down. "Where's Raven?"

Yang knelt next to Fang, pressing a wad of cloth—was that Sun's shirt?—to his leg. Twiggy broke into a run.

"Fang!"

"I'm fine," he growled, hissing at Yang when she adjusted her grip on his leg.

Vernal noticed the commotion and marched over. "What did you idiots _do?"_

Huo paced back and forth. "This is _it," _he snarled. "Next time we see those bastards I'm gonna—"

Jaune hissed in a breath at the sight of the wound. "What happened? Where's everyone else?"

"Quit pacing, I'm not _dying!"_

"Quiet!" A new voice snapped. Everyone shut up and turned to see Raven striding towards them. She took one look at Fang and scoffed. "He'll be fine. Get him in my tent, Vernal can see to his leg."

Vernal grimaced. "But—"

"Now."

Twiggy followed them to Raven's tent, then stood outside and fretted with everyone else while Yang and Vernal took care of Fang. "What happened?" Jaune asked again.

"We stayed behind a bit as a distraction," Sun explained.

"Stayed behind? But..."

"They're not back yet?"

"No!" Twiggy warbled in alarm, and Jaune patted her soothingly on the shoulder. "Wait... why did you split up?"

"Pepper was pretty out of it when we got there. They had to carry her, so I guess it kinda makes sense that they're late."

"Oh." Jaune deflated a bit, then glanced anxiously at Raven's tent. "And Fang?"

"Got shot."

They waited for a long time. Sometimes they could hear Fang cursing at Vernal, but otherwise things were quiet. The sun had already set by the time he emerged, limping slightly but with his leg neatly bandaged.

"Okay," he growled. "Where the hell is everybody? I got shot and I still managed to find this place just fine."

No one had an answer to that. They waited together as the moon rose, hardly talking. Yang and Sun both started to fidget, until he burst out, "Screw this. I'm texting them."

"Don't," snapped Vernal, who was sitting nearby cleaning a rifle. "They won't find us if you force us to move again."

All of them were squirming with worry and impatience when they saw the first shadows overhead. It was hard to make them out in the dark, but Twiggy's heart leaped. No one else would know where they were, after all. As they got closer, she called out a greeting and relaxed when Ao Guang returned it.

Everyone was accounted for. Only Fang had been injured, and Vernal said his leg should heal within the next few weeks. Relief nearly knocked them all out cold. Twiggy curled up between Freya and Guang, with Jaune and Pyrrha tucked under her wing. Safe had been many things, before the council came to Beacon... but maybe it could be all of them working together like this, too.

* * *

May felt as if she was floating off the airship. Her backpack was heavy—so much heavier for the rifle there, tucked into its box. She'd worried security would find it, but no one checked her bag. No one asked. No one seemed to see her as she drifted among them, her mind still hanging in a sturdy oak tree on the edge of Beacon's lawn...

She walked all the way back to Shade. It would have been easier to take the bus, but she didn't want to be closed in with so many people. On the airship it had been hard to breathe. Instead she stayed in the open air, felt the desert sun beating down on her shoulders.

Someone slammed the trunk of a car, and she jumped. The rest of the way she walked quickly, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds, feeling hunted.

She found her team on campus, huddled together and talking in hushed voices. Nolan saw her first. Waved. May felt her shoulders drop into a slouch as she approached, painfully slowly, wishing more than anything that they just wouldn't talk to her.

If wishes were dragons... "May!" Nolan sprinted the last ten feet between them. "Did you see the news?"

She looked down. "Not really. I slept most of the way back."

"Is your dad okay?" Roy asked. She nodded mutely. She'd told them she'd been visiting him in the hospital—nothing serious, she'd said. She just thought he'd want the company, she'd said.

"You seriously didn't see?" Nolan gestured wildly with one hand. "They went _rogue. _The whole _school, _it was crazy—"

"Nolan," Brawnz snapped. "At least let her put her stuff down first!"

Her stuff. She shifted uncomfortably, fighting down an irrational fear that they'd look at her backpack and see right through it, right through the case to the incriminating rifle. "It's fine," she mumbled. "We can walk and talk."

She wondered if it would have been better to see the news first, rather than hearing it filtered through Nolan. It probably didn't matter. Nothing could be worse than the sound of the rifle, the heartbeat of horrified silence... and Ragnar's scream.

Nolan had a different take on events. "The whole place basically revolted. Tried to kill the council reps to stop the inspection."

"Of course Ragnar attacked them," Brawnz said, irritated. "They shot Ozpin."

"They don't know _who _shot him," Nolan shot back.

"They don't want to _admit _they know who shot him!"

"He was already under arrest! He'd been hiding shit for _years,_ I can't believe—"

"Stop," Roy said. May ducked her head, knowing he'd noticed the look on her face. "Just drop it, will you?"

Conversation turned to an upcoming exam—a blessed relief. Roy cleared his throat and muttered, "You okay?"

"Fine. Just... kind of in shock."

"Yeah."

May dropped the backpack in her closet and kicked it all the way to the back, hiding it under a spare blanket. Then she turned on her heel and said, "I'm going to visit Flurry."

He greeted her enthusiastically, nuzzling at her face while his wagging tail whacked against the side of his stall. She managed her first smile that day. Kissed his nose and squeezed her eyes shut.

Flurry hummed anxiously, pulling away so that he could look at her properly. She patted the side of his neck. "It's alright. It's nothing..."

"May?"

She sniffled and wiped at her face with her sleeve. "Sorry. I'm... really sorry."

He purred and wrapped one wing around her. It made a quiet clicking noise as it extended a bit further than it should. May threw both arms around his neck.

_They would have found someone else, if I hadn't done it._

Flurry's breathing ruffled her hair. She could feel his heartbeat like a great drum, with one ear pressed to his chest. Shade had never had an Ozpin. It didn't even have a Lionheart. Nobody cared, nobody... nobody would have tried to protect him. Now he'd be safe.

Now Beacon didn't have Ozpin, either.

* * *

"We need to talk."

Yang stopped, one hand still pressed against Fang's flank. She didn't want to have this conversation. She was tired, and hungry, and she'd just helped Vernal take a bullet out of Fang's leg. A glance around showed her that there was no one nearby. No distractions. Reluctantly, she turned and faced her mother.

"What?" she asked, her voice hard.

Raven gave her a cool, condescending look. "That was reckless. You could have gotten yourselves killed, or led the council right into camp."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Taking risks like that is how you lose a dragon."

Her fingers twitched where they lay against Fang's scales. He growled low in his throat.

"If you want to survive out here, you're going to have to decide what your priorities are."

"Not letting Pepper die is one of my priorities."

"Above Fang?"

"Shut up," she snapped, as Fang hissed tongues of flame through his teeth. "I don't want your life lessons."

"They're not life lessons. They're the laws of survival when you're being _hunted."_ Raven's lip curled. "I'm doing you a favor. This is the kind of thing I had to learn on my own."

"Yeah?" Yang folded her arms over her chest. "You _had _to do it all alone? Because from where _I'm _standing, you could've had three teammates helping you."

There was a flash of _something _in Raven's eyes. Finally something more than casual contempt. "Maybe I _could _have," she snapped, "if they weren't so eager to please old man Oz—if they hadn't been willing to roll over and let the council—"

"Fuck you!" Yang was sure other people had heard that. She didn't care. "Ozpin just _died _protecting every single one of our dragons while you sat around in the woods doing _nothing!"_

Raven opened her mouth, looking slightly stunned. Whatever she was about to say, Yang didn't want to hear it. "Don't talk to me." She turned on her heel and stalked off, Fang following after a final parting growl.

There was a small space behind the tent team RWBY were staying in. She curled up there with Fang, gently soothing his injured leg. Her jaw clenched as she stared resolutely at his scales. This wasn't worth it. She wasn't going to cry.

A rustle broke her out of her thoughts. When she looked up, Phoenix was staring at her. Yang scowled.

"What?"

The dragon's eyes slid shut. She leaned forward, gently touching Yang's forehead with her nose. A hot breath huffed out of her.

Fang, who had been growling deep in his throat, went silent. He stared up at the older dragon, wide-eyed. Yang reached out. It felt... wrong, somehow. Like she shouldn't be able to. But she rested one hand on the dragon's nose, felt the heat of her scales.

There weren't words. She stayed like that motionless, afraid to move, sure the moment would shatter like glass the second she did. Then, reluctantly, Phoenix pulled away.

"Ssorry," she rumbled, and left.

Yang felt the absence, a cavernous aching in her chest, and clenched a fist. What she wanted, right then, was a hug from her dad. To hear one of Uncle Qrow's hunting stories. And more than that, more than _anything..._ just one glimpse of her _real _mother.

"Ang."

She jumped at the sound. Fang gave her a disapproving look, and gently butted his nose against her shoulder. Yang managed a small smile.

"Yeah," she said softly. "Definitely time to get out of my own head."


	26. Combat Training

**Hello! I come bearing dragons play-fighting, and a couple of them not-quite-so-play fighting.**

* * *

**26\. Combat Training**

* * *

"Come on, Zircon," Sage said patiently. "You won't hurt each other, I promise."

Across from him, Nimbus tilted his head to one side. Zircon whined. He didn't want to fight, even if it was just an exercise.

It was their first day of combat training—which wasn't _supposed _to happen until next year, and they were supposed to be learning how to fight Grimm, not each other. But Professor Port and Professor Goodwitch had decided to teach them as much as they could, and as much as he hated it, Zircon understood _why._

He'd still much rather avoid getting into all these fights in the first place. If the council wasn't so... but it was, so fighting wasn't going to be optional. And this was perfectly safe! It wasn't like he was trying to spar with Huo.

Across the clearing, Yang and Sun stepped in to referee his fight with Fang for the third time that morning. Storm seemed as reluctant as Zircon, and batted halfheartedly at Nymph with one paw. Ao Guang pounced on Freya who, after a moment's consideration, collapsed onto her side with her tongue lolling out.

And Twiggy...

She snarled at Mudslide, circling her with her wings partly extended. Then she lunged, snapping and clawing as if they were _really _fighting. Mudslide didn't seem worried. She shrugged most of it off, and retaliated by batting at the smaller dragon with her paws and tail.

Zircon's ears went back. Slowly, he turned to face Nimbus. Lifted one paw... and bopped his brother on the head. Nimbus let out an indignant yelp and jumped on him, knocking them both into a tangle of limbs until he squirmed free and pinned Zircon's tail to the ground. Then he barked and turned to Scarlet, his own tail wagging triumphantly.

Off to the side, Zircon heard a disparaging snort. He looked up and saw Cyclone, watching contemptuously while Vernal leaned against his shoulder. Pit used his powers on Specter, and in his panicked flailing the ice dragon accidentally turned himself upside-down. There was something nasty about Vernal's laughter.

"Can we help you?" asked Port.

"No... but I think I might be able to help you." Vernal gestured at the sparring dragons. "This kiddie stuff? It's nothing like a real fight. If you want them to learn, you'd be better off tracking down some Grimm."

"The idea," Goodwitch said dryly, "is for them to know how to defend themselves _before _they find themselves in a life or death situation." She grimaced. _"Another _life or death situation."

"There is no _safe _way to fight. This is just babying them." Vernal scratched Cyclone under the chin. His eyes went halfway lidded. "In the tribe, we learn by doing."

"Is that how he got all those scars?" asked Yang.

Vernal's smirk turned into a scowl. "Learning means you get scars. Messing around like _this _means you get dead." She half turned, flicking a hand in their direction as if despairing at their stupidity. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

After that, Zircon had a lot less trouble play-fighting with Nimbus.

* * *

Something was wrong with Twiggy. Sky could tell, and he'd barely interacted with the runt at Beacon. But watching her with Mudslide, biting and thrashing and generally taking the whole thing _way _too seriously...

At first he'd thought he'd have to step in, but Mudslide wasn't getting more aggressive to match. She just blocked attacks, retaliating only with as much force as sparring called for. Jaune kept telling Twiggy to calm down. She did seem to be trying to obey, but then she slipped again and clamped her jaws down on Mudslide's tail.

Mudslide shoved her off, grumbling deep in her chest and curling her tail behind her. "Sstop," she said. Sky was pretty sure something else followed, when she snorted at Twiggy and the smaller dragon wilted guiltily, but he couldn't understand it. All he knew was that there was a strange, almost melancholic look in Mudslide's eyes... and she still wasn't snapping back.

"Yo!"

Sky jumped. When he turned around Russel was already laughing at him. "Dude, chill. It's just us."

"Right..." Dove was behind him, gently slapping a palm against his forehead. Tank and Barracuda stopped sparring to watch their riders, until Russel whistled and they went back to it.

"The hell have you been doing out here, anyway?" Russel grinned. "I heard you beat the shit out of Cardin. That true?"

"Yeah."

_"Good."_ Sky was a little startled by the way his teammate spat the word. "Fucker told them. It _had _to have been him."

"Told... what?"

"The council," Russel said impatiently. "He told them about the mutated dragons. They showed up right after Mudslide put him in the hospital—"

"She _what?"_

Mudslide looked over at him, her ears going back.

"Not that that's—I mean—" Sky sighed. "I didn't mean to sound mad, girl, just... what happened?"

"I dunno, but she broke his ribs. And _he _went and squealed. So I'm thinking we pay him a visit sometime and—"

"Russ," Dove said softly.

"I'm just _saying,_ geez."

Dove stepped forward. He wouldn't look at Sky, but he spoke in his general direction. "I'm sorry. About everything that happened after..." Sky tensed, but he didn't say it. "And the stuff that came before. I should've said something, and I didn't."

"Nah." He cleared his throat. "It's... fine. There was a lot I could have done, too. And I didn't."

There was a long, awkward pause. Then Dove elbowed Russel in the side.

"Huh? Oh." He grimaced and folded his arms across his chest. "Yeah. Sorry." Another jab from Dove's elbow. "Quit it! I'm sorry for being a dick and thinking Cardin was funny, are you happy now?" He muttered darkly under his breath, something about what he was going to do the next time he saw their team leader. Sky remembered that Barracuda had trouble swimming, with the webbing between her paws as fragile as it was.

"Thanks," Sky said. "I'm glad you guys are here." He was mildly surprised to realize that he meant it.

The dragons kept tussling with one another for a while. As he turned away long enough to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, Sky noticed Pyrrha leaning against the trunk of a tree, staring blankly at the dragons as they sparred. He glanced at Mudslide and Twiggy. Their fight had calmed down a lot since the beginning of the lesson, and he decided Jaune could probably handle watching them for a few minutes.

When he got closer, he realized Pyrrha was watching Mudslide. He stopped a few feet away from her, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, and said, "Hey."

She glanced up. "Oh. Hello."

Mudslide rammed into Twiggy with her full body weight, knocking her over. The runt whacked her with her tail. Professor Port walked up to them, scratching at his chin for a few seconds as they fought. He started talking, pointing here and there, giving the two of them instructions.

"You know," Pyrrha said softly, "I'm still not sure if she saved me because she likes me... or if she just did it because she knew it would frustrate the council."

Sky snickered. "Probably a little of column A, and a whole lot more of column B."

More silence. Twiggy pinned Mudslide's head to the ground with one paw. Mudslide buffeted her with her wings.

Funny. He was the only one in this group who _knew _what it was like, and he still didn't have the faintest idea what to say.

Pyrrha did. "What was Tornado like?" She kept her eyes fixed on the two dragons as they wrestled. "I feel like I didn't see him when he wasn't..."

Sky let out all his breath at once, like someone had just punched him in the stomach. Pyrrha looked like she was about to apologize, but he shook his head and said, "Scattered. He was really scattered." He sat cross-legged a few feet away from Pyrrha. "I knew he had problems, it was kind of obvious from the start. I mean, at first I just figured I had a really aggressive hatchling, but... then most of the fire dragons started to grow out of biting everything that moved. He didn't."

"Ren said he liked shiny things."

Sky laughed. "Yep. I had this cheap paperweight, a metal ball. He'd chase it in circles for hours. I swear, he never got tired of that thing..." His smile dropped. He'd meant to bring it with him to Raven's camp, but then he'd tried to hit Cardin with a shovel and sort of... ran off without packing anything. He wondered where it was, now.

"Anyway." He forced a smile. "Like I said, he could be kind of scattered. It was hard for him to focus. But when he _did, _like when I'd throw the ball... I don't know. It was like he lit up."

He went quiet, after that. He didn't have the words to describe the way Tornado could be, the pure, uncomplicated _joy _you could see in his eyes when he chased patterns of light across the floor.

"I used to worry about Titan. He seemed... very _textbook,_ at first. He almost never bit me like the other fire dragons would. Whenever I told him to do something in training, he'd do it. It was like... I felt like I wasn't really getting to know him."

Sky could not relate.

"Then, as he got older..." She smiled wistfully. "The first time he met Jaune's sisters, I was half expecting him to try to keep one of them. He was so protective of Twiggy and the others... and at the park..." She trailed off, into the same impotent silence.

"Yeah," Sky said. "Yeah."

A few minutes later, he got up and went back to Mudslide.

* * *

Salty had seen his rider on the brink of death. He'd seen him so hungover he claimed he could feel the pounding of his headache in his toes, he'd seen him pale with blood loss after a fight with the Grimm gone south... and he'd seen him grieving far too many times.

And yet... he'd never seen him this _uncomfortable _before.

"Is this right?" he asked his scroll, grimacing as he fiddled with the tie.

Tai sighed. Qrow had called him out of the blue to ask for help when he realized he'd completely forgotten what Summer had shown him before the school dance, all those years ago. Salty also thought he'd wanted the excuse to check up on him. Their old friend was unkempt, his blond hair sticking up in all directions, with heavy shadows under his eyes.

"Qrow," he said slowly, "That is a shoelace knot."

Qrow shot him a winning grin. "And?"

A while later—much longer than Qrow would later admit—he ended the call and emerged into the street, now dressed in something relatively formal. His flask, Salty insisted, would stay in his hotel.

As they approached Beacon, Salty was almost overwhelmed by familiar sights and smells. There was still a faint echo of Ragnar's presence, and when he looked up at the soaring arches he could almost pretend he was a hatchling again.

Then he passed the barns. Great metal shutters had been installed on either side of each building, so that the dragons could be locked inside. There were other signs. Faces Salty recognized, students that had applied to Beacon and been rejected. Many had taken the sight test, and failed. Now the sight test was gone, and there were armed soldiers walking the pathways instead of Qrow's nieces. Salty swallowed a growl.

"Hey," Qrow called out to one. "Where can I find Wesley Wisteria?"

"Business?"

"Yeah. Interview."

The soldier pointed towards the tower. Again, Salty had to stamp down his instincts to keep from baring his teeth. That was _Ozpin's _office. He followed meekly behind his rider. Qrow was trying hard to make this work—Salty couldn't let him down.

They met Wisteria on the top floor. He was sitting behind the Dragonmaster's desk, in the Dragonmaster's chair, staring out the Dragonmaster's window at the wide lawns and winding pathways Salty had spent the best years of his life exploring. There was a gold pen on the desk that he must have brought in, and when he noticed Qrow he looked up and frowned.

"Ah. Yes. Qrow Branwen, isn't it?"

"That's me." Qrow shook his hand, flashing him a plastic smile.

The man hummed. "You were... insistent, over the phone."

"I know you need professors. I'd be happy to help out, however I can."

"Right. Yes." Wisteria grimaced. "I've heard of you. Your record with the Grimm is impressive."

"Thanks." Salty surreptitiously nudged Qrow with his tail. If Wisteria noticed the hint of sarcasm, he didn't show it.

"Yes." He cleared his throat. "I thought it best to speak with you in person. The council values your civic spirit, and I would very much like to recommend you to the Specialized Guard—"

"I'm sorry," Qrow said, through gritted teeth. "I must not have been clear. I know you're short on Professors here, and I thought—"

"That thought is appreciated," Wisteria said, "but new professors are being selected personally by the council. I couldn't appoint you to a position even if I wanted to, and quite frankly..." he trailed off. "To be blunt, your associations are not..."

"Right." Qrow folded his arms across his chest. "I get the picture."

"I have the number for the Sp—"

"That won't be necessary."

Qrow left the room, tugging at the tie as he went. It was stuffed in his pocket by the time they were back outside. Salty rumbled quietly to soothe his rider.

"I know. It was a long shot, but..." Qrow glanced around. Salty knew they were seeing the same thing—the shell of a sacred place, filled with something vile.

Maybe they could have done something. Maybe they could have helped the students. And yet, Salty couldn't help feeling relieved. He wasn't sure he could have stomached the role they would have had to play.

* * *

"I saw your... _training."_

Fang stopped mid-step, turning his head to see Cyclone and Vernal watching him. The wind dragon was cleaning his claws, the picture of nonchalance.

"Fang?" Yang followed where he was looking and tensed. "Come on," she muttered. He didn't budge.

"What?" he demanded, growling.

"It was cute," Cyclone sneered. "Watching you all flail around like your scales were still wet from the egg."

Fang hissed and bared his teeth. "Want to see it up close?"

"Fang," Yang said sharply. "Stop it."

Cyclone snapped at him, teeth slamming shut inches from his nose. Fang reared up onto his hind legs and roared. Yang put a hand out, then froze, glancing between the two of them. Slowly, she stepped back... but she kept a wary eye on the fight.

_Good._ Fang swiped at Cyclone with his paws, feeling fire bubbling up inside him. He hated this ugly wind dragon and his rider. He hated this camp, where older rogues always ordered them around while doing absolutely nothing themselves. And he _hated _Raven Branwen.

Vernal smirked. "Looks like he wants to see what a _real _fight is like." She whistled at Cyclone. "Put him in his place."

"Gladly," Cyclone growled, dropping into a crouch.

Fang snorted. "You look like you _lost _the only fight you've ever been in."

Cyclone snarled at him and flared his wings. Then he snapped again, catching Fang's foreleg in his jaws and shaking. It was his bad leg, the one that had been shot, and the pain was blinding. He wrenched free and jumped at the older dragon. They rolled on the ground, growling and snapping.

"Come on," Vernal snapped. "Bite!"

He pressed Fang into the dirt and tried to sink his teeth into his shoulder. Fang struggled, managed to free one paw and rake his claws at the other dragon's chest.

Vernal's eyes narrowed. "You call that—"

"That's enough!" Yang stepped between them as Cyclone reared back, his head fins flaring in outrage. The scratches on his chest were shallow, but one of them was bleeding a little.

"See, this is why they're all so useless," Vernal said. "You need to let them fight, it's how they learn."

"Let them fight? Yes." All four of them whirled at the new voice. Raven looked at Vernal disdainfully. "Egg them on? No. Unless you _want _to goad them into killing one another?"

Vernal flushed and shot Yang a venomous look, like it was somehow _her _fault. "They're soft."

"They are." Raven turned her attention on Fang. He bared his teeth, wondering if biting her would be worth it. Probably not—he didn't want to fight Phoenix. "They'll grow out of it, or they'll die. Don't waste bandages on pointless fights."

"I didn't—"

Raven held up a hand, and Vernal went silent. "Get the camp ready. We're hosting an important guest the day after tomorrow." Vernal obeyed. Cyclone slunk after her, shooting Fang a last glare that promised future retribution.

Only the three of them left, now. Phoenix was nowhere to be seen. Raven approached Fang, looking him up and down with a critical eye. "He's healthy?"

"Yeah."

"Rare, in your class." Fang growled as she got closer. If she touched him, she was losing a finger—he didn't care what Phoenix would do.

"I guess."

"Fire dragons aren't easy to raise. Keep handling him like you did today, and he should be a real fighter." And Raven left.

Fang stood next to his rider, both of them staring at the place where she'd been. Both hating the faint thrill that came with the praise. He growled and called her a word he'd heard Russel say once.

Yang patted his shoulder. "Couldn't have said it better myself."


	27. Sabotage

**Hello again! This... week? 3-4 day span? This _chapter, _it's time to check in on the White Fang... and Sienna's growing headache.**

* * *

**27\. ****Sabotage**

* * *

The fire was brief, intense, and hot enough to melt several glass beakers stored inside the tent. The wooden pole in the center snapped in the heat, bringing the whole thing down, and smothering the worst of the flames. That was the only reason they still had any of their injection equipment left.

Sienna paced around the ruined tent. It hadn't hit any of the eggs, which she supposed was lucky. The Dust had gone off in the middle of the night, when there weren't any injections being done, and the incubators were far enough away to escape the blaze. It could have been much worse.

This was not comforting. Three of the Fang braved the fire, saving most of the dust and preventing a chain reaction. All of them were in the medical tent while Coral treated their burns. They had lost most of their needles. Several very specialized, very expensive machines were broken. It would take weeks for faunus sympathetic to the cause to carry replacements out to the camp—longer if the humans were unwilling to loan them the lien to pay for them. Weeks of sitting in the woods watching eggs hatch, unable to inject any new ones. Worst of all, they were almost completely out of fire Dust—and it was fire Dust that heated the incubators. They had only a few days of fuel left, at which point they would start to lose eggs as their temperatures dropped.

She halted in front of the wreck, glowering at the charred scraps of canvas. Eleven vials of fire Dust. That was their chemist's best guess at what had caused the explosion. Except that the Dust couldn't have been agitated like that if it was still _in_ the vial. Someone had poured it out and deliberately set it off.

Someone in the White Fang was sabotaging them.

"Sienna?" She whirled around, barely holding back a snarl. Ilia leaned away from her and turned an alarmed shade of yellow.

_"What."_

"The Albains and the Lieutenant want to talk. They're in Adam's tent."

Sienna followed Ilia back to the center of the camp. Adam's tent had become a makeshift command center for the five of them—she hoped it would lend some more legitimacy to their leadership. They needed all the help they could get.

The other three were already there, seated in a circle in the middle of the tent. Corsac spoke first. "We need to find the traitor."

No greeting. No beating around the bush. Sienna was thankful for small mercies. "We'll post a guard in the future," she decided. "As it is, we'll have a hard time narrowing down the possibilities, since just about anyone could have gotten in."

"We can rule out the three who jumped into the fire," Ilia said. "Right?"

"Probably, but that isn't much help."

Silence.

Ilia turned the color of a bruise. "If no one else is going to say it... what about the human?"

"Hazel?" Sienna frowned. "I doubt it."

"He's not part of the Fang. We have no idea what his 'employer' actually _wants."_

"True," Corsac allowed, "but we _do _know that they've invested quite a lot of money into this venture. It seems rather foolish to burn the equipment they paid for."

"Pointing fingers won't get us anywhere." Sienna's ears flicked irritably. "We'll start with guards."

"I can do it," the Lieutenant offered.

Ilia nodded and said, "So can I."

"The three who were burned will be good candidates when they recover," added Fennec. "In the meantime... Justice and Harbinger, perhaps?"

"That should be enough." Sienna nodded once, satisfied. It might not prevent a repeat incident all on its own, but there were other precautions they could take. "We'll need padlocks. A safe, for Dust that isn't in use... if we can figure out how to lock up the tent, even better."

"That wouldn't matter," Ilia said. "The traitor could just cut their way through the walls."

She grimaced. "True. We'll do what we can to up security, and if nothing else that will make it much easier to tell who was responsible."

"Dust is our most immediate concern," Corsac said. "We don't have any fire left at all."

The Lieutenant grunted. "I'll lead a raid."

"Justice and I can go with you," offered Ilia.

"Good."

Sienna stood up. "Unless there's anything else, I'd like to take another look at the lab, see if there are any patterns we might have missed."

"Actually, yes." Fennec's eyes glittered. "There is the issue of the hybrid that you lost."

"It ran off," Sienna replied, through gritted teeth. "I can guess that there might have been a congenital behavioral issue at play that we didn't notice in time."

"Even so. Since we're even less likely to produce functional hybrids in the next few weeks, it seems prudent to wait to give you another one until the rest of the inner circle has received an egg. To make sure you've ironed out any... issues."

"What?! But it wasn't her fault!" Ilia was indignant. "The hatchling must not have bonded right. They don't run away from their riders like that, they just _don't."_

Sienna tried not to think of Brand, and failed.

"And if there's another unfortunate incident with the next egg? It seems unwise to risk—"

"Enough." The Lieutenant looked at Fennec, his expression still hidden behind his mask. "We don't know that the beast's behavior had anything to do with her."

Corsac glanced at Fennec. "We will all get eggs. It seems as though reducing the risk of another... _defector, _so to speak, is worth the slight inconvenience to Sienna."

_Ah._ So he'd finally noticed the jealousy.

Ilia opened her mouth to argue, but Sienna put a hand on her upper arm to stop her. "I understand your concern," she said mildly. "And I don't think this is worth arguing over."

It wasn't. She didn't want to spend any more time on this than necessary, not with a traitor still walking freely through their camp. But she liked the idea of letting the Albains dominate their circle even less. So she smiled in an accommodating sort of way—at the Lieutenant.

"I'd be willing to wait until after the next egg has been hatched. There isn't much reason that one of us needs a dragon sooner than the other."

She couldn't see most of his face, but she did see his eyebrow twitch. "Alright..." he said, sounding slightly suspicious. Sienna guessed he hadn't figured out why she'd done that. Ilia probably wouldn't, either.

The Albains both knew, and Fennec would resent her for it. So be it—as long as he didn't have an egg, the two of them weren't as much of an inseparable unit as usual. And as long as she got a dragon soon, she'd be part of the inner circle whether they liked it or not.

_Politics._

Sienna left the tent soon after that. She wandered out towards the woods, massaging her temples with one hand. Damn Adam, and damn Blake. The two of them couldn't have left the White Fang more headless if they'd been working together and _trying._

If only Ilia hadn't been needed at Haven during that whole mess. If only she could've persuaded Adam to pick another second-in-command. If only his obvious successor hadn't run off to join the humans. If only, if only...

* * *

The raid was hastily planned. They chose a shipment from the SDC to Vale, and the very next day they made their move—any longer, and they might not return in time to save the eggs.

Justice was glad. It was horribly boring spending all day cooped up in the camp, and after the explosion everyone had gotten tense. Ilia said there was a traitor. It made his blood boil just thinking about it. So many traitors and deserters...

It was a relief to finally be able to _do _something about it.

"Get ready," the Lieutenant's voice rumbled through the scroll. Justice tensed, flexing his wings. He and Ilia waited on a cliff overlooking a set of train tracks as they curved around the base of the mountain. The big man and six others hid in the woods far below.

A small speck appeared in the distance. As the train approached, Ilia hopped onto his back—but did _not _strap herself into the saddle. They waited... and waited...

"Now!"

Justice leaped off the cliff and glided smoothly towards the frontmost car. Ilia slid off him the moment he landed and dropped into the car. A moment later there was a harsh screeching noise as the train began to slow.

Several cars down, a hatch burst open. Guards in faceless white armor poured out, all of them pointing guns and shouting. Justice hissed and lunged at them, scattering them like bowling pins. One of them shot at him. He grabbed the offender's gun in his jaws and ripped it away before it could do any harm.

More guards swarmed out of other cars. Justice reared back and roared in alarm. There weren't supposed to be this many.

"Justice!" Ilia clambered up out of the front car. "Are you—" She turned a sickly green when she saw the guards. "Shit!"

More gunfire. Justice lunged at his rider and sheltered her under his wings. Bullets stung his flank and one of his forelegs. He flexed the muscles there and growled. These smaller guns weren't as bad as the council's rifles, but they still hurt.

Justice uncurled himself, taking care to keep his body between Ilia and the guns. Then he swept his tail through the mass of guards, sweeping almost a dozen of them off the train. Fire built in his stomach, and he spat it onto the roof of the train. They backed away. The hail of bullets stopped.

"Are you hurt?" Ilia crouched behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "And why the hell are there so many of them?!"

"No," Justice said, answering the first question. He had no idea about the second.

Some of the guards had recovered enough to keep shooting. Ilia slid across the roof of the car and ducked back inside it. That left Justice free to charge the humans. Several of them screamed as he tore down the length of the train. It had slowed to a crawl, now, and knocking them off wasn't as helpful. He threw himself into their midst, pushing them to the ground and whipping his tail through their ranks. If they got up, he hit them again until they stayed down, stunned or unconscious.

Several minutes later the gunfire stopped again, this time for good. The rest of their raiding party reached the train and broke into the rear cars, carrying out crates of Dust. Justice sat proudly on the roof, licking some of his wounds and flexing his legs and wings to make sure everything was still working fine. One wing was a bit sore, but otherwise he felt fine. This was _easy._

There was a single sharp _bang_. A gunshot. Coming from the front car.

Justice's claws scrabbled on the roof of the train as he bolted, skidding to a screeching stop at the front. He ripped the hatch open with a tortured squeal of tearing metal and forced his head inside.

Ilia crouched behind the conductor's chair, her skin ashen grey. There was a hole in the console that threw off sparks. A bruise bloomed at the corner of her jaw. And another guard stood there, frozen in the act of lining up his gun for another shot.

Justice lunged. His teeth sank into the man's shoulder and chest, crushing the armor and then punching through. An agonized howl made him fold his ears back. Then he shook the human, hard, and threw him into a wall. He roared, and the fire built in the back of his throat, and he opened his jaws—

"No!"

He clamped down on the flames as Ilia threw herself between them, her arms spread out. Justice screeched in outrage, tried to shove her aside. His claws dug into the roof of the car. This _thing _tried to kill his rider. He growled, smoke billowing from between his jaws. It would go away, now, it would turn into ash and dust and they would be safe.

Ilia whacked his nose, hard. He reared back and hissed. "Stop it!" she shouted. "He's _down!"_

The man lay in a crumpled heap, groaning quietly and bleeding on the floor. He was still moving. "Bad," Justice said, frustrated that she didn't seem to understand that he'd tried to _kill _her.

"Justice, _please!"_

Reluctantly, he swallowed the fire. Then he grabbed his rider by the back of her shirt and hauled her bodily out of the train car. The others joined them, and they fled before the guards could recover from being thrown around. The whole way back to the camp, Ilia kept looking at him like he'd done something wrong. Like she was scared.

_It was just one stupid human!_

He couldn't stand it. He loped off into the woods—anything to get away from the look on her face. It was getting dark, now. A fire between his jaws lit up the area around him, throwing weird, writhing shadows across the ground. He sat in a small clearing with his tail wrapped around his feet.

Justice didn't understand what he'd done wrong. Brand might be able to tell him, but the older dragon didn't talk to him anymore. Harbinger probably wouldn't know, and he didn't talk to anyone much. Not since the hatchling ran away.

He got up and paced back and forth, his tail flicking irritably. What had he done _wrong?_ He'd stayed with Ilia, he hadn't abandoned their cause. And he wouldn't, he _never _would.

Frustration bubbled over, and he took a swipe at a nearby tree. Then another and another, until it shook, cracked, and came crashing down.

_"Why?!"_ he bellowed.

* * *

_"Why?!"_

The tree splintered and fell, sending small animals scattering in all directions. Justice paced, roaring at the sky and lashing his tail from side to side. It whipped against the ground with a sharp crack.

In the deep shadows of the undergrowth, sun-yellow eyes gleamed. Her heart fluttered under sandy scales, hammering in anticipation of the blinding flash that had come with the loud noise last time. When it didn't come, the panic receded enough for her to bolt further into the shadows, moving silently over leaves and twigs until she crouched in a tangle of wildflowers. Their smell should obscure her own. The bigger dragon kept pacing, letting out frustrated growls and lashing out at the forest around him. Fire flickered between his jaws.

Tiny claws kneaded the earth, and muscles coiled in her hind legs. If she could sneak around behind him, she might be able to blind him again. He would run away if that happened. But he was too big to fight, if she missed... and even if she didn't, he would bring others into the woods. They would hunt her.

_The puzzle lock clicks open. Then her ears ring, there is fire under her eyelids, pain... tightness all around her, smothering her, until her claws shear through fabric._

She backed up a few paces, keeping the bigger dragon in her sight. Better to stay away from him until she was older.

Then, he spoke. "Rudder?"

Her heart beat against her ribs again, she could feel it pounding right down to the tip of her tail. She crouched, poised, her wings raised in preparation for the strike. Had he seen her? Smelled her? What was a rudder?

"I want... I want to talk to you."

Her ears perked up. _Talk?_

"I know you're in Vale." A frustrated flick of his tail. "Or... you were. You're probably somewhere else now."

She tilted her head to one side. He wasn't talking to her, but there was no one else in the forest nearby. He'd scared away all the animals. All that was left were the trees and the vast, empty sky.

Justice collapsed onto his haunches, and all the menace went out of him like a puff of smoke. His wings crumpled in on themselves, his head hung low, his tail curled limply in the dirt. There was a defeated slump to his shoulders as he said, so softly she hardly heard him, "I hate it here."

She crept forward and crouched once again in the patch of flowers, listening intently.

"There were supposed to be other dragons. Someone I could finally..." He shook his head. "And I can only talk to you when you're not even here.

"I want... I want..."

He snorted, fire flickering from his snout. "This is stupid." His neck craned upward, staring at the shattered moon overhead. "It's wrong... but I want Jade and Whisper. I want that hill where we used to sit. I want...

"I want to go home."

The words hung in the air a long moment, as if frozen there by the cold silver light that filtered through the leaves. Then Justice threw his head back and howled. It was a piercing, mournful sound, and the night swallowed it up without a trace.

She crouched among the flowers, shivering. Her pupils were blown wide, reflecting the moonlight. Her chest ached with a longing to join her voice to his, to ease the horrible loneliness of that haunting cry. She stayed silent and hidden.

Justice sat there a while longer. Then, without another word, he stood up and walked away.


	28. The Important Guest

**Hi there! This chapter we've got some of the older generation of dragons—Glacier, Ragnar, and Phoenix!**

* * *

**28\. The Important Guest**

* * *

The shovel struck the ground, sinking in several inches and standing straight up. Jaune leaned against it, both hands clasped over the handle, resting his forehead on the back of his gloves.

There weren't any stables in the Branwen tribe. There _were _dragons, though, and they had to be taken care of. So instead of mucking out stables, he cleaned up the spaces outside riders' tents where their dragons slept. Pyrrha worked quietly and methodically beside him, moving like she was half-asleep.

_I'm sorry._ Jaune bit down on the words and hefted the shovel instead. He had no idea what to say. The last time he'd tried... he swallowed hard. Everything he said just made things worse.

Eventually they were finished. Mander, the fire dragon without horns, poked his head over his rider's tent and snorted approvingly. He curled up in his usual spot, put his head down on his paws, and started to snore. Pyrrha lingered for a long moment. Staring.

"Come on," Jaune said, gently taking her hand. "Let's go find Vernal."

Working for Raven was... strange. They hardly ever saw her—and when they did, it was only long enough for her to bark orders at them. She put Vernal in charge of making them help around the camp. Jaune wasn't sure, but he had a sneaking suspicion that she was deliberately giving them the worst jobs she could find.

Cyclone snarled at them when they approached. Vernal glanced up just long enough to jab a finger towards the campfire and tell them they could help skin the day's catch. Jaune turned, very slowly, to see one of the rogues sitting on a log with a knife and a dead squirrel.

"Uh..."

"If you want to eat," she snapped, "you work."

The woman with the knife turned out to be quite friendly by Branwen standards, and with her help they managed to get the job done mostly unscathed. Jaune still cut himself twice, and by the time they were finished the smell had thoroughly ruined his appetite. He was also convinced that yes, Vernal _was _doing this on purpose.

Dinner was loud. Most of the noise came from the rogues at first. Then one of them decided it would be a good idea to teach Nora a drinking song, and things sort of devolved from there. Jaune sat with Pyrrha on the sidelines, sneaking glances at her face whenever Nora did something ridiculous—like starting a competition with Sun to see who could fit the most blackberries in their mouth at once. Sometimes he saw the ghost of a sad smile. He would have wrestled a King Taijitu to be able to make her laugh, just once.

As the fire died down and the rogues filtered back to their tents, Ren approached with a tin cup. "Do you like mint?"

Pyrrha blinked at him. "I... yes?"

"Here." He handed her the cup. Steam wafted from it, smelling wonderfully fresh. "I found some in the woods this morning."

"Thank you."

He sat on Pyrrha's other side as she curled her hands around the cup, sipping at the tea. Nora wandered over a moment later and plopped down mostly on top of Ren. Twiggy lay behind them, her flank warm against their backs.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jaune noticed Professor Port walking past the fire. "I'll be right back," he said, giving Pyrrha's hand a last squeeze before he moved away.

"Professor?"

Port turned and smiled through his mustache. "Hello, dear boy!"

Jaune stood there, shuffling his feet, groping for words.

"Was there something you wanted to ask me?"

"...Yeah." He looked over his shoulder at his team, all gathered around Pyrrha. At Twiggy, who was resting her head in the spot he'd just vacated. "What... what do I do?"

"Ah." Port's face fell for only an instant before he covered it with a chuckle and clapped Jaune on the shoulder. "To tell you that I'd have to know myself."

"Right..."

"Be there, m'boy. That's all you _can_ do." His smile was strangely understanding. "It's natural to feel useless in times like these, but that doesn't mean you _are."_

* * *

A vast blanket of green and brown spread across the valley, trees growing together in lockstep. Small animals chattered in the undergrowth, birds called to one another as they hopped from branch to branch, leaves rustled together... and another voice, like crystal chimes, sang a song it only half remembered.

Glacier paused, tilting his head to one side as if listening to someone. Then he tried again, singing in that eerie whistling way he had. Whitley hummed along, though he struggled to follow the notes. He could play the piano, but he'd never been much of a singer. Still, it was... nice.

"I don't suppose you could tell me where you heard that?" he asked the dragon. Glacier craned his neck to give him his usual blank, wide-eyed stare. "Didn't think so." Whitley scratched him under the chin, prompting a happy chirp and a flick of his ear.

Whitley yawned and stretched. The blanket he'd draped over Glacier's back shifted underneath him. He hadn't cut himself on the ice dragon's spines since he'd started using it as a makeshift saddle... though he very much doubted it would stay on in the air. That didn't matter much, not when Glacier hadn't tried to take off since that night with the Grimm. Whitley had asked him—not to go to Atlas, necessarily. Just to fly. He hadn't done it.

Things were easier, now. Whitley had learned not to kick Glacier like a horse to spur him on—he'd hissed and bared his teeth, and that was that. He'd learned how to cook what the dragon caught all the way through, and had even managed to find a few berries he recognized as edible. He'd learned what it felt like to wake up gently, without an alarm, with the morning sun streaming through the trees.

He had not learned where he was. The faunus villager had told him he was in Vale, but he still didn't have a clue how far the city was, or in which direction. It seemed less important with every passing day**.**

Things were... manageable. He hated sleeping on the ground and eating his own cooking. He could live with the slight chill in the air now that he had boots and a warm blanket. But sometimes the light would hit the membranes in Glacier's wings just so, or a gust of wind would blow through a tangle of bushes bursting with flowers, and he'd forget he was supposed to be looking for another town.

"You're a stubborn lizard," he said, patting Glacier's back. Every time he tried to wander off on his own, the dragon would track him down and deposit him on his back. "You know we'll have to go back sometime, right?"

Glacier flicked an ear.

Whitley gave him another pat. "They're probably worried about us." He had a hard time imagining how any of his family had reacted to him going missing. Mother wouldn't take it well, if anyone told her. Would they? Would she notice, if they didn't? What about Weiss and Winter? They wouldn't be _glad,_ he knew that much. And father... he just couldn't picture it. Couldn't imagine what would have gone through his head.

Glacier whistled and nudged him with his nose. Whitley came back to himself with a small start, and mustered a smile. "I'm fine." The dragon felt the need to lick him anyway. His tongue was cool, like fresh grass in the shade.

They walked like that a long time. Glacier sang—almost the same set of notes each time, just tiny changes here or there, spiraling closer and closer to something so familiar... Whitley was half convinced that one of these days the dragon would hit on the right combination, and whatever memory the melody kept tugging on would spring to the front of his mind.

Today was not that day. Night fell, and Glacier stopped under the branches of a massive oak. Whitley slid off his back. Then the dragon curled up, lifting a wing in invitation. He crawled under it, wrapping the blanket around himself, not even bothering to take off his boots. His head rested against Glacier's forepaw, and he fell asleep feeling the slight chill of pale scales under his cheek.

* * *

"Ragnar!"

Oscar jogged along the now-familiar path, a bale of hay slung over his shoulders. "I brought dinner!"

He skidded to a stop, breathing hard. Ragnar wasn't in his usual spot. Oscar turned and came face to face with grey-brown scales. He looked up. And up. And up...

"Oh," he said, his voice a little higher than usual. "You're... um..."

The dragon was a lot taller now that he was standing up. He limped closer, nosing at the hay, and snorted. "Thank 'oo."

"You're welcome! I'm glad to see you're feeling better." Ragnar still limped badly when he walked up to the bale and started to eat, but even that much was an improvement. Oscar also checked the stitches he'd made to the great dragon's wings, and was relieved to find that they, too, were healing well.

Ragnar rumbled deep in his chest. Chewed. The hay bale slowly disappeared, with the few loose bits of straw that fell to the ground being sniffed out and gobbled up. Oscar frowned—it was hard to tell if he was bringing enough food or not. It wasn't like he knew what he was supposed to feed a dragon the size of a barn.

When he was finished, Ragnar hummed contentedly. His head turned towards Oscar. Grey eyes blinked slowly. And then, very carefully, he leaned forward. Hardly daring to breathe, Oscar held up a hand. The dragon pressed his nose against his palm. "Scarr... gud." His arm vibrated with the deep voice.

Ragnar pulled away. He limped off into the woods, painfully slowly, his tail dragging behind him. It took a moment for Oscar to shake himself out of his daze.

"Hey, wait! Where are you going?"

The dragon paused. "Ozz... kill..."

"Wait, what? You want to kill someone?!" Oscar jogged to intercept Ragnar as he walked, stopping in front of him with his arms spread out.

"Yes." He nudged Oscar out of the way with his nose, making him stumble. "Kill... one... kill Oz."

_Oz... Ozpin._ "You want to find the people that hurt your rider."

A low growl he felt in his skull. "Nno. No hurt. _Kill."_

Oscar swallowed hard. "The people that killed him, then."

"Yes."

"Do... do you mean the council?"

Ragnar snarled. "Yes!"

Oscar took a deep, steadying breath. "I won't stop you."

"Gud."

"But... wait until you're stronger. _Please."_

The dragon glared at him. "Need... need—!"

"I know! I know." Oscar reached out, hesitated... but this time Ragnar let him touch his flank, running a hand across the rough scales. "But you're still healing. You won't be able to do anything until you're stronger. If you try to fight them now..."

Ragnar's legs were already shaking with the effort of keeping him upright. The anger drained out of him as he slumped back to the ground and lay on his stomach. He snorted irritably. "Rroo," he grumbled—and before Oscar could ask what that meant, "Ffine. Wait."

"Thank you." Oscar patted his side.

"Soon," Ragnar insisted, holding his gaze. "Go soon."

"...Yeah."

Oscar walked back to the farm with his mind racing. Until now, he'd mostly known the council very distantly as the people his aunt paid taxes to. The ones who told dragon riders where to go to protect the people from Grimm. Since he'd seen the news broadcast about Beacon, though... they said _Ragnar_ had started the fight. But looking at him, remembering his cries after he'd first crash-landed...

Someone killed Ozpin. _That _had started the fight at Beacon, not the students, not the teachers, and not Ragnar. And who else would have done it except them?

He was still lost in thought when he opened the back door and walked into the house. Then he froze, doing a double-take when he saw two men in suits sitting at the kitchen table. "What—"

"Oscar!" His aunt put down the kettle she'd just taken off the stove. "These men are from the council, they wanted to ask you a few questions."

"Oh." He tried to smile, but it felt horribly fake and unnatural. "I, um..."

"We're looking for a rogue dragon," the man on the left said. "It's very dangerous. Anything you saw might help us."

"You were out in the fields that morning. I told them if anyone would've been outside at such an ungodly hour..." His aunt smiled playfully at him.

"Uh..." Oscar glanced between the two men, then stared fixedly at the kettle when panic started to blur his thoughts. "Actually, yeah. There was something... it looked a little big to be a bird, but it was hard to tell."

"Did you see which way it went?" asked the man on the right, leaning forward.

Oscar glanced out the window and pointed westward. "Over towards the lake, I think."

They stood up. The one on the left gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. "You've been a big help, son," said the one on the right.

"Yeah." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "No problem."

Oscar watched them leave. Then, through the window, he caught sight of them walking towards the lake. His hands balled into fists. He couldn't warn Ragnar, not now—he might lead them right to him.

Would they find Ragnar if he stayed put? Would he have stumbled right into them if he'd left when he wanted to?

Oscar fled to the safety of his room and flopped down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. It took that long for it to hit him—he'd just lied to council representatives. He'd hidden a fugitive. More than that... he'd picked a side.

* * *

They were in the woods, this time. Fang curled around a tree, Yang leaning her back against the trunk and gently stroking his injured foreleg. He cracked one eye open as she approached. It didn't narrow in suspicion, like it might have when they first arrived. Instead he just watched as Phoenix padded towards them.

Yang looked up. Phoenix offered her nose, her eyes fluttering shut as a hand came to rest on her snout. She smelled like Raven, and... it had been so long since she'd seen Tai, she'd almost forgotten his scent.

"Ang," she rumbled, drawing back. "'Lo."

"Hey."

Blunt fingernails scratched at the ridges behind her eyes. Phoenix purred, her tail wagging.

"Does she know you're here?" Yang asked quietly.

The purr died away. "Nno," Phoenix admitted.

A scoff. "Of course she doesn't."

Phoenix made a pained noise. "No!" It wasn't like that. Raven hadn't told her _not _to come, she just... "Rrae... talk... hard."

Yang scuffed at the ground with one boot, scattering a few dead leaves. "She doesn't have a problem ordering me around."

"Duh... diff-rrent."

"...Yeah." She picked up a leaf and twirled it between her fingers. "Whatever."

Silence fell, aside from the crinkling of the leaf and their breathing. A lock of hair fell into Yang's eyes—the same one that always bothered her mother. She was almost the same age Raven had been, when they met for the first time.

Phoenix had seen Yang before now—though only for a few days, just after she was born. It was hard to imagine that this tall young woman had come from that tuft of blonde fuzz poking out from a bundle of blankets. Sad, somehow, to realize she'd lost the wide, curious eyes of a hatchling somewhere along the way. Sadder that Phoenix didn't know where.

"Sorry..."

Yang shredded the leaf between her fingers. "Yeah. I know."

Neither of them spoke for a long while. Then there was a noise, further off in the woods. Twigs snapping. Phoenix picked her head up and watched, her shoulders tensing until she saw red between the trees and relaxed.

Ruby broke into a run when she saw them, stopping a few feet in front of Yang and panting with her hands on her knees. "There... you are."

"Is everything okay?" Yang half-rose from her seat. "No one's hurt, or—"

"No!" Ruby waved her hands frantically. "No, we're fine! Um..." She glanced at Phoenix. "I was worried about you, actually."

"What? I'm fine, I was just hanging out with Fang."

"Uh-_huh."_ Ruby planted both hands on her hips. "Since when do you hang out alone in the woods? This is, like, the third time."

"I can walk around if I want!"

"Yeah, but you've never done it _before."_ Ruby plopped down in front of her, so that their feet were touching. "I just... you can talk to me, if you want. I know you're not super glad to be here."

Yang glanced up, briefly meeting Phoenix's gaze. "It's fine. I... don't really want to talk about it right now."

Silver eyes flicked towards the dragon. "Oh. Right."

That stung—deserved as it might have been. Worse was when Phoenix lowered her head to greet her. The smell struck her like a knife in her chest, _twisting..._ it was as if Summer had walked back into the world while she was looking the other way.

Phoenix had never met Ruby as a baby. Had missed all Yang's years in between. Had heard from Salty that Summer was dead, more than a year after the fact. She pressed her nose to Yang's forehead, rumbled a quiet goodbye, and walked away.

Raven was in her tent, where Phoenix had left her. She glanced up when the dragon entered and gave her a pat on the nose. "Almost done," she said, gesturing at the heap of papers on the table. "We should be able to find somewhere a bit more permanent in the next day or two."

"Gud."

Her rider picked up one of the papers, then paused when she noticed Phoenix was still staring at her. "What?"

"Ang."

Raven grimaced. "I told you, it's not important."

Phoenix let out an irritated growl. "Is."

"I made my choice. The right choice."

Before, maybe. When Yang was a baby and didn't even know what the council _was. _Now that she was here...

"Talk."

* * *

They gathered in the center of the camp an hour later—the students, the rogues, and all their dragons. Raven watched them from her place beside Phoenix. They waited.

Ruby thought it was warmer than it had been the past few days, but Emerald shivered and hugged her arms around her stomach. She kept biting her lip and glancing anxiously at the sky. "Are you okay?"

She started at the sound of Ruby's voice. "I—yeah. I'm fine."

Mercury glanced over at her, an irritated, almost pitying look on his face. He said something in her ear, and she jabbed him hard in the ribs. Ruby frowned. "What—"

"Nothing!"

This time, it was Mercury who elbowed Emerald in the side. He gave her a significant look.

"Um..." Ruby glanced from one to the other. "Are you two, uh..."

A final, vicious poke from Mercury. "Last chance," he muttered.

Emerald whacked his shoulder and said, "It's nothing. He's just an asshole."

"Yeah, sure, call me an asshole the one time I try to—"

In the distance, a dragon called out. Mercury broke off mid-sentence, and Ruby searched the sky. It was impossible to see it properly. Even when she finally spotted it, all she could make out was the occasional shadow as it passed in front of the stars. But as it got closer... there was something familiar about it. She could see stripes, now, black and gold.

_Oh..._

The dragon landed in the center of the camp, right beside Raven and Phoenix. It was even bigger than she was, with eyes that burned blue like the heart of a fire. And its rider...

"You're her." Ruby stepped forward, feeling the woman's eyes on her. "You're the woman from the broodery. And at the Vytal Festival—!"

"Yes. I am."

She raised her hands and beckoned at the crowd. For a moment Ruby was just confused. Then Emerald and Mercury walked past her, stopping on either side of the woman. Her mouth dropped open, and something hot and sickly settled in the pit of her stomach. Emerald wasn't looking at her.

"My name is Cinder Fall."

Ruby opened her mouth again, but stopped when Raven shot her a quelling look. "Well?" she said, gesturing at the crowd. "You wanted to speak to us."

"Our alliance up until now has been unofficial," Cinder said. Behind her back, Yang clenched a fist. "And, of course, you've picked up a few new faces." Her eyes raked over the assembled students. "I'll be brief. We're going to war with the council."

There were sharp intakes of breath among the students. Pyrrha looked up for the first time since Cinder had landed.

"And you'd like my tribe to help you?"

"All those who are willing."

Their conversation was almost casual. Ruby suspected they'd already worked this out beforehand, and that this was just a ceremony to make it official.

"We accept." Raven held out a hand that Cinder shook.

"Good." She looked back over the sea of faces. "I hope the rest of you will do the same. And together... we'll bring the council to their knees." Cheers erupted from the older riders, and there were hisses and roars from their dragons. One fire dragon shot a gout of flame at the sky. As the glow faded, Cinder flashed them all a vicious smile.

Most of the tribe dispersed after that, walking with their dragons back to their tents. Ruby was sure Cinder was about to fly off, but she stayed on the platform. Watching them expectantly. She glanced at Yang, who nodded and cracked her knuckles.

They approached Cinder as a group, their dragons crowding in behind them. She waited until they were all there, leaning casually against her fire dragon's shoulder. Emerald and Mercury, by contrast, were tense where they stood on either side of her. Ruby drew in a breath to say _something_—but before she got a chance, the woman spread her hands wide in invitation.

"So," she said. "I assume you have questions?"


	29. Blueprint

**Hi there! I give you... roughly ten times as much swearing as usual! (A lot of it, unsurprisingly, is Mercury's fault.)**

* * *

**29\. Blueprint**

* * *

"I assume you have questions?"

Blake narrowed her eyes. _Yeah, a few. _Starting with some pointed ones about a possible connection to Hazel and the white Fang.

Cinder leaned casually against the shoulder of her dragon. "I'd also like to ask you all about joining the fight, since you weren't a part of our earlier agreement. Unless you've joined Raven's tribe officially?"

Yang answered for them. "No."

A slight smirk. "In that case... what would you like to know?"

"Does a human named Hazel work for you?" Blake asked, careful to keep her tone neutral and curious.

Cinder raised her eyebrows. "Hazel? No, but if you think they'd be on our side, I'd be interested in meeting them."

Blake watched her carefully, but she couldn't see any tells. Either she was telling the truth, or she was a very good liar. "I doubt I could get in contact with him now. Never mind."

"A shame." Cinder rubbed at her dragon's neck. "Anything else?"

"Yeah." Ruby glared at Cinder. "Why did you attack Violet Broodery? They never did anything wrong."

"It was never about hurting the brooderies. So long as the council controls the eggs, we have no chance at destroying them. Now, with some of them _liberated..._ we might have a chance to bring the hybrids back."

Blake's stomach roiled. "How do you plan on doing that?" she asked, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

Cinder's expression turned pained. "As slowly as we can. The formulas that were once used are lost—either destroyed, or so tightly held by the council that they may as well have been. Recreating them will be... difficult, but if we proceed very carefully we can make sure as few hatchlings are harmed as possible."

Weiss nodded slowly. "Like the SDC, under my grandfather."

"Precisely." Cinder smiled—it was warm and friendly, but Blake found that it grated. "Unfortunately, performing the injections this way means that we haven't had any successful hybrids yet. With a little luck, that will change soon."

"It won't." Weiss glanced at Specter. "It took decades to find a stable formula for ice dragons. Even if you're _extremely_ lucky, there's no way you'll have a full-grown dragon for another few years."

Something flickered in Cinder's eyes, so quickly that Blake almost thought she'd imagined it. Surprise? _Anger? _She hoped the leader of the fight against the council wasn't the type of person who'd snarl at someone just for telling them something they didn't want to hear. She'd had more than enough of that already.

Then it was gone, and Cinder just looked frustrated. "I see. I think our progress has been promising so far, but we might have been overly optimistic. But the details can wait for another time—do you have any more questions?"

Ruby started to shake her head, then paused when Storm nudged her shoulder urgently. "What is it, girl?"

"Eh... Eh-knee!"

There was a moment of silence, while all the riders stared at Storm in confusion. Frustrated, she barked something at Cinder's dragon, who bent her head close to her rider's. "Vice," she said. "Mm..." A frustrated huff. "Duh-vice."

Cinder's brow furrowed for a moment. "Device? Device—oh. The implant Storm tested at the festival."

"Oh!" Ruby jolted where she stood. "Yeah! You stole Penny!"

"I apologize for that. I didn't want that sort of technology getting into the wrong hands... and it _will _be incredibly helpful for keeping our dragons safe during our war with the council." Cinder smiled. "I'd be happy to return it to you and Storm."

"Um..." Ruby looked a little taken aback, like she hadn't expected that to be so easy. "Good!"

"Anything else?"

Ruby opened her mouth, then stopped. "Not right now," she said, turning to look at Emerald. "Can we give you an answer later, once we've talked about it?"

"Of course." Cinder trailed a hand under her dragon's chin, scratching gently. "I have matters to discuss with Raven. Come and find me when you've made your decision."

Raven disappeared into her tent, with Cinder following right behind her. All eyes turned to Emerald and Mercury. She looked slightly sick. He grinned and said, "Well. Cat's out of the bag, I guess."

Blake hadn't seen Ruby look this angry since she'd confronted Cardin after the dragon swap. She glared directly at Emerald. "Explain."

* * *

Mercury was _such _an asshole.

As the day of Cinder's arrival had approached, he'd suggested telling the _others_—with a significant waggle of his eyebrows that had sorely tempted her to try burning them off—that they worked for her. She'd said no. Of _course _she'd said no, because Cinder never told them to reveal themselves like that.

"She didn't tell us _not _to, either," Mercury had pointed out.

But if they revealed themselves, and it turned out Cinder had wanted their involvement kept secret... Emerald couldn't stand that. So she'd said nothing, and waited, and hoped that maybe she could bring it up in a few weeks, after everyone had gotten used to the idea of helping Cinder save the dragons.

And then Cinder had called her out of the crowd. Claimed her. Mercury had the nerve to whisper, "Told you," under his breath as they walked up to her.

Now they were in the center of the group of students, hostile eyes bearing down on them from all sides. Accusation. Betrayal. And Mercury just _stood _there. _Smirking._ "Okay. What do you want to know?"

"The fall of Haven. Was that you?" Emerald couldn't look Ruby in the eye. She just nodded, staring at her shoes. "And Beacon?"

She tried to speak. Failed.

"We stirred things up a little," Mercury said quickly, "but only to get people to wake the hell up about what's going on. Whatever the fuck that was, it wasn't us."

Emerald finally found her voice. "I—we _never _thought the council would find out about your dragons." When she risked glancing up, Ruby was mulling it over, frowning.

"Why?" She jumped, hearing Pyrrha's voice. It was the first time she'd spoken to anyone outside her team in a long while. "Why keep it secret? If you were really trying to help, why didn't you just _tell _us?"

"We were going to. It just... it wasn't time yet."

"The plan was to keep a low profile until Cinder was ready to come out and talk to the school," Mercury added. "Then things went to shit."

"So?" Yang glared at him. "What about between then and now?"

Emerald answered. "We didn't know what Cinder wanted us to do. She couldn't get in contact with us, not when we couldn't use our scrolls."

"Seriously? You need her permission to sneeze, too?"

"Yang." Ruby shot her sister a reproachful look, and Emerald dared to hope. "Look, it... I get that you haven't really known us that long, and trying to stop what the council's doing is a good thing. But after everything that happened at Beacon, it kind of hurts that you still didn't trust us to help."

She hung her head, groping for words that never came. Mercury stood next to her as the students—as _Ruby _walked away. He took one look at her and sighed.

"Don't say it," she snapped.

"Wasn't gonna. You're too mopey for it to be fun, anyway."

Emerald risked a glance at the retreating group of students. "What... what do I _do?"_

"Friendly reminder that I'm not psychic. Brilliant and charismatic, sure, but not psychic."

Maybe it wasn't fair, but she hated him for making her say it. "How do I get her to trust me again?"

"Ah." Mercury shoved his hands in his pockets. "Probably groveling. That usually does the trick." He gave her a strange, piercing look. "You're gonna have to get pretty good at it."

"What's _that _supposed to mean?"

"You wanna get back in her good books, that's easy. Kid's a wet noodle. You wanna _stay _there... step one is to stop being Cinder's whipped dog."

Emerald hit him on the shoulder, hard. "Fuck you!"

"You asked."

She did it again, and was rewarded with a wince. "Don't talk about shit you don't understand! Asshole."

"Keep it up," he grumbled. "Eventually I'll learn not to bother helping you."

* * *

Pyrrha looked around their circle of friends and professors—and the tolerable three-quarters of CRDL. All of them waiting for someone to speak first, until Nora broke the tense silence. "So... now what?"

"I mean, I think we're all on the same page as far as the council goes," said Sun. "They can go jump in a lake."

"The question is whether or not we can trust Cinder," Jaune agreed. He squeezed Pyrrha's hand once, as if inviting her to speak. She didn't.

"She burned down our neighbors' broodery," Yang said. "So that's one point against. And she attacked Ruby, which is about a million points against."

"Well, she didn't really attack me _directly—"_

"Oh, yeah, that's _much _better!"

"Okay, that's one vote against," Jaune interjected. "I think."

Fang bumped his head against Yang's. Then, over her indignant yelp, "Ffight. Gud. Ssin... fight." Huo snorted agreement, sending up a little puff of smoke. Mudslide just nodded.

"Fighting the council doesn't have to mean _her,"_ Yang insisted.

"Doesn't it?" Weiss gestured around their group. "There aren't exactly enough of us to attack them on our own."

Blake grimaced. "It's dangerous to join someone just because they say they're your only option."

"That's not the only reason, is it?" asked Sun. "I mean, if she's the one behind Haven, and the Vytal Festival... she's done some stuff that's a bit sketchy, but she also called the people in charge out on a lot of their bullshit. And, I mean, how many people has she actually hurt?"

"The professor at Haven," Sage said.

Scarlet nodded. "There have definitely been injuries in those robberies, too. I don't know how many off the top of my head, but... she doesn't seem that bothered about hurting people."

Neptune groaned and rested his forehead against his knees. "I'm getting mixed signals here."

"A few hours doesn't feel like enough time for a decision like this," Ren mused.

The debate went on and on. Eventually it started to feel like a loop between two points—Cinder was the only one with enough support to actually challenge the council... and she'd attacked innocent people to steal from the brooderies.

Pyrrha stood up, and the argument cut off abruptly. "I can't choose for any of you... but I'm joining." She shut her eyes and swallowed, momentarily overwhelmed. Jaune squeezed her hand again.

Sky got to his feet, too, his arms folded over his chest. "Honestly? She could literally set me on fire and I wouldn't mind, as long as she gave me the chance to bring those assholes down. Yeah, I'm in."

Then, to her shock, Professor Goodwitch followed their lead. She and Port had been so quiet while they argued, Pyrrha had almost forgotten they were there. "You all have every right to stay out of this fight. It should be our responsibility—" she glanced at Port, "—not yours. But, if any of you do wish to join with Cinder..." Her eyes flashed. "I will do everything in my power to help you."

There was a ringing silence. Then Sun raised his hand. "So... all in favor of plan 'fuck 'em up'?"

Some were reluctant—Yang declared that she didn't and wouldn't trust anyone who'd attacked Ruby, which was fair. Dove turned very pale when Sky asked if he wanted to join. Blake grimaced and said that she still wasn't sure about Cinder. But, in the end, they were unanimous.

Hours later, when Cinder left Raven's tent, they were all gathered there. Ruby looked her right in the eye and said, "We're in."

* * *

Sienna watched a spot of gold growing on the horizon with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. _Oh, hell..._

"Ilia?"

"Yes?" She noticed the approaching dragon an instant later and turned an uncertain orange. "Oh..."

"Go to the lab and watch the eggs, make sure nothing happens."

"Right."

Sienna watched her leave without a word of protest, and felt herself relax just a little. It was nice to have at least one person who was simply _competent, _who didn't feel the need to grapple for power or lash out uselessly. Someone trustworthy.

She wondered if Adam used to feel like that about Blake.

"Not the time," she muttered to herself, and strode towards the center of camp to greet Cinder.

Corsac and Fennec got there first. She tried not to let herself be irritated by that—Cinder probably wouldn't care, and it didn't matter who _appeared _to be in charge so long as the Fang kept working smoothly.

"—despite the setback," Corsac was saying. "Security has been increased. It won't happen again."

Cinder raised an eyebrow. "You would have been out of commission for weeks. I'd say that's more than a _setback."_

"Would have been?" Sienna glanced at Strike's feet, where a small heap of crates was neatly stacked. "Ah."

"I won't play carrier pigeon again," Cinder snapped. "Either you find whoever interfered with your operations, or _we_ find another organization to handle the eggs."

"It seems like you're forgetting who stole all that Dust in the first place." Sienna winced at the Lieutenant's entrance. He glared at Cinder through his mask. Challenging.

"Besides," Sienna interjected, "that won't be necessary. The incident may have slowed us down, but we've made good progress."

"Have you?"

"There's one egg in particular that has been promising. It's never a sure thing until they hatch... but there are no visible flaws in the shell, and the Dust mixture has produced promising results in the past. We're in the final stages of tweaking, and then we'll have another viable hybrid."

"Show me."

_If anything happened to that egg..._

But it hadn't. Ilia stood over the rows of incubators, quietly vigilant. Cinder inspected the shell, gently tapping it with one finger and listening intently. "This is a water and lightning mix, correct?"

"Yes."

"Good." Cinder removed her hand. "This will be perfect for a loyal member of our organization."

The Lieutenant bristled. "Our _agreement _was that you'd have the next successful hatchling."

"This _is _the next successful hatchling," Cinder said coolly. Her eyes flicked towards Sienna. "Or have you forgotten about your... ill-fated dragonet?"

Sienna stiffened. For a moment she could hardly believe her own ears—Adam might have just _killed _her for that, never mind the consequences... Was this a test, then? Pushing the boundaries with the new leadership?

"Like _hell," _the Lieutenant snarled. "It was a reject. It didn't bond right."

There was a flash of something downright _venomous _in Cinder's expression. Sienna tensed even further, remembering what Adam had been like near the end—you could never be quite sure what would make him explode.

They weren't ready to break from Cinder's faction yet. And they _definitely _weren't ready to go to war with them. How to placate her, without conceding too much...

Corsac's lip curled. "You want us to give you an extra egg. This was _not _part of our bargain—we are not _pawns _to be used for equipping humans."

Cinder arched an eyebrow. "He isn't human."

For a second, even the Albains froze in surprise. If Cinder employed a faunus, why would she have sent Hazel to work with them? But Sienna didn't have time to think through those implications.

"In that case, I believe we could support giving the man an egg." She smiled pleasantly. "But we're hardly in a position to give up hatchlings freely. We need our own dragons to protect this lab—almost as much as we need equipment."

Cinder looked at her for a moment, then smirked. "Of course. Consider the replacements paid for."

She was gone within minutes—Sienna's shoulders slumped a little as Strike shrank in the distance. The Lieutenant still looked furious, but both Albains had settled down. Ilia just watched, a slightly distasteful look on her face. Not perfect... but it felt as though the crisis had been averted for the moment.

The next morning, as the sun rose over the camp, irritated voices started calling out for Thistle. Four faunus combed the camp for him, when they woke up and realized he hadn't spent the night in their tent. He'd probably shared a bedroll with Lily again—technically he wasn't supposed to, but he was one of their best hunters, which meant he could get away with it. Though why the stubborn bastard couldn't just _warn _them once and a while...

Hours passed. The shouts grew anxious, then frantic. Someone barged into Sienna's tent, red-faced and panting.

There was no trace of Thistle anywhere in the camp.

* * *

A million billion motes of bright green against a sea of blackness. Connections, a web of fine lines that pulsed with light. Within each mote another web, subsystems nested in subsystems—and within each connection a stream of information that flowed like water through an infinite river, branching again and again and again...

It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Green eyes roved over the screen. He rotated the display, watching in awe as even more complexity was revealed. Grudgingly, he admitted to himself that Gepetto was indeed _brilliant._ He must have invented an entirely new coding language, one that was visual rather than text-based. It was like looking at a brain.

Too much like looking at a brain. He could _see _where the AI had grown out of its own parameters. Whole sections of code that seemed almost organic. A hand drifted up and smoothed his mustache as he thought. It seemed impossible that Gepetto had sat down and _built _this, so... what if he hadn't? Perhaps he had designed it from more basic parameters, including some mechanism for changing its own code. Evolving. _Learning._

"Brilliant," he mused, "but an idiot."

Fixing the problem was difficult, but not nearly as difficult as building the thing in the first place. All he had to do was figure out what each section did, delete the extraneous ones, and remove the learning mechanism now that it had served its purpose.

His scroll went off. He picked up, holding the device in one hand while he explored the code in front of him with the other. "Yes?"

"I'll need the implant, soon."

"Ah." He leaned back in his chair. "Hello to you too, Cinder."

_"Arthur," _she snapped. "Don't play games with me."

"Well, if you want more of them you'll need to give me some time. This device really is _astonishingly _complicated."

"How long?"

He smirked. "For the most basic functions? At least a month."

"Fine. But _don't. Change. Anything. _Understand?"

"Of course." A code this complicated could get bugs if you so much as breathed on it wrong. It would be stupid to fiddle with the _original._

Cinder ended the call.

Doctor Watts put the scroll down and clicked over to another window. This time connections were outlined in yellow, like a constellation of stars. It was significantly smaller than Gepetto's version, pared down to its most basic functions. Why Gepetto had decided to create an AI—and one that looked borderline _sentient _at that—and stuff it into a device that had no need for it, he'd never understand. His own design was elegant and streamlined, the motes lined up in neat rows and organized according to their functions.

He zoomed in on one cluster of points and frowned. It usually took hours to figure out what any piece of the code did, but this one actually had _notes _for a change. Translation software.

Watts deleted it. If he was going to mass produce these things, he'd have to get rid of all this unnecessary bloat.


	30. Restless

**Happy Friday! I come bearing JNPR cuteness, Neptune's awful luck, and Phoenix trying so very hard.**

* * *

**30\. Restless**

* * *

"Ugh."

Ao Guang looked up as Nora dumped an armful of logs on the growing pile. He wagged his tail and barked hopefully at her.

"Sorry Guang. We've gotta do more a little more work before we can play, okay?"

His ears drooped. Beside him, Freya yawned. "Do we really have to carry all of this?" she asked, nudging the pile with her forepaw.

Guang flicked his tail. "That's what Ren said."

Just then, his rider emerged from the woods with even more logs. "This should be enough." He glanced at Nora. "What do you think?"

"Yes, _please!_ This is so boring!"

Ren smiled. "It _is _sort of our fault they had to move and leave the old stockpile behind."

"That was a rescue mission!" Nora poked him in the forehead, making him go cross-eyed. "A _super important _rescue mission."

Ao Guang crouched down so that his rider could pile the logs onto the basket he carried on his back. They were much heavier than Ren, but he didn't have to fly with them, which made it a little easier. Nora was right, though—this was _boring._

Freya dragged her feet on the way back, huffing at Guang whenever he jumped over a log or ran in a little circle around her. By the time they got back to camp and Ren undid the basket harness, he was vibrating in place, itching to run. He bounded between two tents, then skidded to a stop with a small squeak.

Cyclone glared at him.

Ao Guang hastily slunk away, checking behind himself every few steps. He hid behind Ren as soon as he reached him, poking his head out from behind his rider's back.

Ren reached up and scratched behind his ear. "Careful. They're letting us stay here, we don't want to start any trouble." Guang nodded frantic agreement. He _definitely _didn't want any trouble with Cyclone. He hadn't thought any dragon could be scarier than Mudslide and Barracuda.

Nora noticed what they were doing, snickered, and joined Guang behind Ren. When his rider tried to turn around she jumped on him, throwing both arms around his neck and hanging off him. "Hi!"

"Hello."

Guang barked expectantly and nudged Ren with his nose. Between the dragon and Nora, he _almost _fell over, but managed to throw out his arms and keep his balance. "Alright, we can play for a bit if you'd like."

Ren was tired, so they played fetch—he sat with his back to Freya and threw a stick, and Ao Guang and Nora competed to see who could grab it first. Guang almost always won. They only stopped when Nora dived for the stick and grabbed it just as he picked it up, leaving her dangling from it with both hands while he crossed his eyes to try and figure out why the stick had gotten so heavy all of a sudden. Both were out of breath, but that didn't stop either of them from pouncing on the other two.

Freya let Ao Guang pin her with his forepaws, yawning and flicking him lazily with her tail. Ren was knocked backwards by Nora's hug, and the two of them ended up sprawled in the grass—her laughing helplessly, him smiling a sleepy, contented smile.

Then Guang spotted Twiggy, standing between two tents and watching them. He felt like he'd just been caught stealing from another dragon's stall. There was a flush of guilt and shame, and his ears drooped before he could stop them. He'd been happy for a moment, he'd been happy because he _forgot,_ and Twiggy always looked so sad...

Ao Guang charged at his smallest sister, half-tackling her and licking at her face. She squirmed, then batted at his head with one paw. "Hey!"

He jumped off and greeted Pyrrha, sniffing and purring quietly in her ear. Then he licked Jaune, barked at all three of them, and sat down on his haunches. Freya reached them a moment later, padding towards them with her tail dragging in the dirt. She'd been even more tired than usual, lately. Nora hugged Pyrrha and Jaune, squishing the two of them together.

There was a single golden instant where Ao Guang was convinced that Titan was about to walk up to them and complete the circle. Then came the pang, when he remembered. It had been two weeks since they'd arrived at Raven's camp, now, but those moments still hadn't gone away. They were just a little weaker every time. The realization hurt a little less... and the feeling of wholeness was a little more distant. Only an echo.

Guang shook his head, hard. He didn't want to think about that right now.

Nora glanced between Jaune and Pyrrha. "How are the chores?" she asked, suddenly unusually subdued.

Jaune shrugged. "Okay. It feels kind of... uh..."

"...Boring?"

He turned a bit pink. "Well, yeah. It's just weird to be sitting around like this. I thought we'd be doing something after Cinder..." He trailed off, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Yeah." Nora bounced in place. "I figured by now we'd all be on another daring rescue mission, not hauling firewood for Yang's mom."

"Which, sidenote—" Jaune held up a finger. "Was that, like... did I miss something?"

Ren smiled. "No, Jaune. We were just as surprised as you."

"Oh, good!"

For a moment, the tension eased. Then Pyrrha said, "I hate waiting like this."

Twiggy whined and pressed her nose against Pyrrha's back. Jaune draped an arm over her shoulders.

Ren cleared his throat. "I think we're all a bit..."

"Antsy?" suggested Nora.

"Exactly."

"It's not just that." Pyrrha petted Twiggy's head absentmindedly, running a thumb over one of her ears. "I need to _do _something."

He couldn't help it. Ao Guang let out an anxious warble, his tail curling downward. Ren ran a hand along his neck to soothe him.

Pyrrha looked at the ground. "I'm sorry."

Jaune shook his head and said, so softly that Guang almost didn't hear it, "Don't be."

* * *

"Um... excuse me?" Nimbus padded closer, his tail flicking back and forth. "Sorry to bother you..."

The old water dragon turned her head, one ear rotating in his direction. Her eyes kept staring directly ahead. "You're one of the hatchlings."

"Well, um... we're not _hatchlings, _but..."

She snorted. "Young ones, then." Her ear twitched again. "What is your name?"

"I'm Nimbus."

"Aphotia." She extended her neck, stopping with her head several feet to his left. Then she waited patiently. Nimbus tried to touch his nose to hers, but he accidentally bumped into her jaw instead.

"Sorry!" he blurted as he pulled back.

"Don't be." Her ears perked up in interest. "Are you blind, as well?"

"Not really." Nimbus pawed at the ground, embarrassed. "One of my eyes likes to wander, so things get kind of blurry sometimes."

"You had a question for me?"

"Yes!" He fidgeted some more. "I noticed you never bump into anything walking around the camp, and I wondered if you knew any tricks?"

"Hmm." Aphotia pondered that a moment, her head tilting to one side. "It's difficult to explain. I've always had to remember where everything is, or use my paws and tail to feel around for obstacles. It's a matter of practice."

"Oh." Nimbus had never thought of using his tail to judge distances before, but he wasn't sure if it would help much. His eyesight was blurriest when he was nervous or afraid, usually when he didn't have time to feel around. "If you don't mind me asking, what do you do in the air?"

"I've only ever flown twice in my life. Once when I was very young, and my rider was still trying to hide my blindness from our teachers. And once when we fled from Haven together. I crashed badly both times."

Nimbus whimpered, horrified. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said anything!"

Aphotia flicked her tail dismissively. "I don't miss it. I'm quite good at swimming, and I prefer the water to the air anyway."

"Right..." Nimbus curled his wings around himself. "I'm still sorry."

"Don't be." She reached out with one paw until she touched his shoulder, then butted it gently with her head. "I think I have an answer to your original question. The trick is, in my experience, to know what your strengths are. There are many places under the sea where there is no light—the deepest places, underground caves that are flooded for miles. I can navigate them in a way no other water dragon ever could."

"I don't know if I have strengths like that." Nimbus felt his head fins droop slightly.

"You do," said Aphotia, with unwavering confidence. "It's only a matter of finding them." She made an amused chuffing sound. "And, if you're anything like I was at your age, drowning out the doubts that others have placed upon you."

Nimbus hesitated. "I guess... I'm pretty good at flying." Their professors had said so, even though he used to crash sometimes when everything got too blurry.

"There you are." Aphotia bobbed her head in an exaggerated nod. "And my second piece of advice is that, when you must face your weaknesses, you need to trust your rider to compliment you." She flared her wings a bit haughtily. "Mine sometimes makes himself useful by describing our surroundings. It's good to give them something to do—it lets them feel important."

Nimbus giggled, then clamped his jaws shut.

"I heard that." Aphotia flicked him gently with her tail. "Run along, youngling. If I know Vernal, you and your riders have work to do."

* * *

Storm bent her neck and strained against the ropes around her chest, heaving a wooden pole the size of a tree upright. Jade struggled beside her with her tongue hanging out. Ingle, a scarred old fire dragon with both his horns missing, held the base of the pole steady. Then he guided it into the hole that their riders had dug and let it drop. He tapped it with his paw. When it didn't even wobble, he rumbled in satisfaction.

"Okay," Ruby said, wiping sweat off her forehead. "What now?"

Ingrid, the dragon's rider, waved her hand. "Nothin'. Too late to do another one before it gets dark."

"Oh." Ruby glanced at the tops of the poles—there were three of them now, forming most of a square. She had to crane her neck all the way back. "What's this for, exactly?"

"Tents. Drape a sheet of canvas over this, and you've got one big enough for half the tribe and their dragons. Use the right color and it'll blend right into the forest. In the wintertime, if there's council riders around, we can't light a fire. So we pack everyone into a tent like this, and fire dragons like Ingle here—" she gave his hindquarters an affectionate pat, "—turn it into a damn sauna. Reeks like hell, but better than freezing to death."

"Hate winter," Ingle grumbled. "Dark all the time."

"Speaking of dark." Ingrid waved a hand. "Bugger off before somebody sees you idling around. You've done your fair share for the day."

So Storm and Jade and their riders trotted off to find somewhere to hide. It had taken a while, but eventually they'd learned the best way to survive at Raven's camp—find someone _besides_ Vernal and Cyclone, and ask them what they needed help with. Under Ingrid's supervision they had mostly played around while their riders dug holes, then spent a few minutes hauling on logs with Ingle. That was _much_ better than being glared at by Cyclone all day. So long as they helped out, most of the tribe were friendly enough—even some of the scarier looking dragons.

"Vernal probably wouldn't find us in the woods, would she?" Jade asked.

"I don't think so, and it's almost dinner anyway." That was an informal rule in the Branwen camp—once the sun set, work was over and everyone ate together. Mostly because Raven didn't like people lighting too many fires, in case a dragon flew overhead and they needed to go dark.

They didn't get far before Emerald started to fidget uncomfortably. "I should probably look for Mercury."

"Oh." Ruby looked at the ground. "Okay."

Storm looked at Jade. Jade nodded, then grabbed the back of Emerald's shirt and hoisted her onto her back. "Hey!"

"No," she said, and marched into the woods with Storm. Ruby tried to smother her laughter with her hand, but it didn't work all that well.

They curled up under a tree full of bright red blossoms, circling both their riders. Storm put her head in Ruby's lap and purred when she started scratching under her chin. Jade butted Emerald with her nose until she got the same treatment.

Everything was quiet and still. Storm's eyes went half-lidded, and she sighed contentedly.

Ruby broke the silence. "Hey, um... have you been avoiding me?"

Emerald jumped. "No! No, that's just—no."

Ruby, Storm, and even Jade gave her skeptical looks.

"...Maybe a little." Emerald ducked her head so that her face was mostly hidden behind Jade's ear. "I just didn't know if I should... if you'd want me around."

"Of course I do." Ruby tilted her head to one side. "You know I already forgave you, right?"

"Uh, _no?"_

"Well... it hurt a little bit, but I know you were trying to do what's best for dragons. And that's _definitely _not the council."

"...Oh." Emerald sagged against Jade's flank. "Yeah, I... I'm glad."

"I think I am too." Ruby shifted her hand to hit a spot right behind the corner of her jaw, and Storm just about melted. "It's honestly kind of a relief to be _doing _something, instead of everyone telling us to wait until we're older."

"So... we're okay?"

"Duh! I still wish you'd let us help earlier, but I'm not mad at you."

Emerald smiled softly, even shyly. Her mouth opened to say something, and she leaned almost imperceptibly towards Ruby.

Then her hand went still where it had been petting Jade. She flicked an ear, startled, and that jolted Emerald out of whatever trance she'd been in. The smile vanished, and she directed an intense stare towards a nearby rock.

Storm looked at Ruby, her head tilted to one side in confusion. Her rider's eyes were wide. She mouthed the words, _'Help me!'_ Storm warbled in alarm. How was she supposed to know how this human stuff worked?! Ruby looked from Emerald to Storm and back, her whole body vibrating anxiously. Then she lunged, grabbing Emerald around the shoulders in a tight hug.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" Ruby let go like she'd just been burned and started petting Storm again. "Just... um... showing you that we're okay!"

"...Right." Emerald looked away again.

Storm hadn't felt this out of her depth since she was a hatchling—why did they keep going from happy and smiling to tense and awkward? And how did they do it so _fast?!_

* * *

By now, Neptune was used to eating around the fire. Everyone sat near it, the whole camp arranged in a messy circle, dragons and their riders jumbled together. Even Raven would be there, sometimes talking to older rogues, or laughing at their jokes... though she always kept slightly apart from it. Aloof.

Except, apparently, sometimes Raven ate separately. When she had guests. And tonight, _they _were her guests.

Raven normally entertained people in their tent. Since there were almost twenty of them, counting their professors and most of CRDL, that... wasn't really an option. So Vernal led them to a quiet corner of the camp, and a smaller fire around which they all sat. Raven flicked a hand towards Professor Goodwitch.

"This is your plan. You might as well explain."

Goodwitch stood up. "Your dragons have all been making excellent progress in combat training." Vernal snorted, and Raven shot her a quelling look. "With that said... I don't know what Cinder has planned, but it's going to involve confronting the council directly at some point. You are in dire need of real combat experience. Normally this would wait until your third year, but we don't have the luxury of time. And considering recent events, I suspect there are quite a few low level Grimm infestations that aren't being dealt with."

Professor Port beamed at them. "That's where you come in!"

"Wait." Weiss raised an eyebrow. "We're being hunted by the council... and you want us to go around checking mission boards?"

"No need for that." Raven picked up a small stack of papers and dropped it at Port's feet. "Settlements this far from the kingdoms aren't picky about _who _gets rid of the Grimm, as long as it gets done. We have an understanding with a few of them. They sell us supplies and don't get chatty about it, we make their woods a little less dangerous."

"We picked up some kiddie missions for you," said Vernal. "The kind you hardly need dragons for in the first place."

"Gather round!" Port flicked through the fliers. "Oh-_ho!_ I haven't seen a Beringel in years!"

Goodwitch pinched the bridge of her nose. "That is _not _a low level mission, Peter."

"Ah, yes. Well..."

She took several mission fliers from him and skimmed them. "One aquatic Grimm," she said, "one amphibious... we'll need to split the water dragons."

Neptune had a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"I'll take one group," Port said, "and you can ride along with another. That still leaves two more... Unless we break them into teams of five?"

Raven's lip curled. "If you want them to get combat experience with _those, _you'll need at least four groups. Vernal and I can each lead one." Hearing that, Vernal grimaced.

Things got very loud very quickly, as everyone started clamoring over groups. Neptune mostly just listened. Then Goodwitch came over to him with a pair of fliers and a look on her face that was almost sympathetic. The sinking feeling turned into full-blown dread.

"Mister Vasilias. Unfortunately, there are only two water dragons in this group that would be able to give chase to a Grimm under water."

_Oh no._

"I'll be taking Mister Lie and Mister Thrush to deal with the aquatic Grimm, and I'd prefer to work with you as well."

Neptune could hear his own heartbeat. "I can't... I mean..."

Raven had been listening. "If you're going to be squeamish about combat, you chose the wrong line of work," she said, looking at him like he was something distasteful. "But it's the water dragon that needs to be there, not you. It doesn't really matter who rides her."

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Beside him, he felt Sun tense slightly. All of a sudden he _knew _he was about to offer. And that... Neptune couldn't stand that. Couldn't make him leave Huo, couldn't do that to Nymph, couldn't risk him getting hurt and it being _all his fault._

"I'll do it!" The words came out in a rush. "I'll go with you."

Goodwitch gave him a smile he could _swear _was approving. "Excellent. I look forward to continuing your education."

* * *

_"Muh. Minn-nite."_

Yang had never felt the need to describe a dragon as _cryptic _before now. Phoenix hadn't explained anything—she'd just jabbed her tail at the woods and, if she'd interpreted it right, told her to go there at midnight. Now the moon was out, and she was standing next to Fang with both hands shoved into her pockets. She shivered.

Somewhere in the trees to her right, there was a brief scuffle. A harsh whisper, too quiet to make out. Yang glanced at Fang. He bared his teeth and jerked his head towards the source of the noise. She gave him a thumbs-up and led the way. They circled around a massive oak tree. Stopped. Stared.

Phoenix stood there with her back to them, her neck fully extended. Her teeth clamped down on the back of Raven's shirt. Slowly, she started to pull—

"Let go!" Raven snapped, bopping Phoenix sharply on the nose. She reared up, and Raven's boots left the ground for a moment. Seams popped. Then the dragon dropped her a few paces in front of Yang and neatly blocked her escape with her body.

Yang opened her mouth. Closed it.

"Talk," Phoenix said, nudging her rider. Raven shot her a venomous look.

"I'm going to bed," Yang decided. She turned around—and Phoenix darted forward, barring her way with a forepaw.

"Nno! Talk."

Yang looked at Fang. He shifted from foot to foot, his eyes wide and slightly panicked. _"Help me," _she hissed. He warbled uncertainly. Then Phoenix barked at him once, and he backed away.

_Traitor._

Phoenix coiled around them both, forming a wall with her own body. Raven stood there, one hand braced against her hip. Yang stood there, her arms folded. Neither said a word.

The dragon growled and poked Raven expectantly with her tail.

"Meddling reptile."

"Phoenix, please let us leave," Yang said. She was doing her best not to shout—the dragon probably had good intentions, but this was _not _happening now. Or ever, if she could help it.

Phoenix glared at Raven. "Talk!" Another jab with her tail. "Ssay... ssay..."

Raven grimaced. "Alright! Alright." Her lips pressed together, like she'd just bitten into something sour. "You... you have a place here. If you want it."

Yang stared at her. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

"No, no." She put up a hand. "I mean... seriously? Why the _hell _would I want to stay here?"

"You found me—"

"I wasn't _looking _for you!" A nudge from Fang made her drop her voice just as she was about to break into a shout. "I wasn't... you just show up out of nowhere, and you think that's okay? It's not okay! Where were you when I kept asking Qrow? Where were you when I actually _needed _you?"

"You didn't."

_"Excuse_ me?!"

"You didn't need me." Raven gestured at their surroundings. "These people? Dragons? They need something I can give them. You..." She trailed off. Phoenix prodded her with her tail. "Stop that."

"You're right." Yang shoved her hands in her pockets. "I don't need you."

"Except to protect your ragtag little band. To train and teach you." Phoenix whacked Raven's shoulder. "I said,_ stop that."_

"I have friends for that. If we weren't welcome here, we'd figure something else out. But it's worth putting up with you if Ruby and the others get somewhere to stay out of it."

Raven didn't flinch. "You're young. You've never had to face the real world before. I can help—"

"The real world." Her tone was flat. It felt like every word was stretching a gigantic rubber band, the rubber thinning, ready to snap. "Yeah. Never heard of it. It's not like we've lost anyone, or anything. Not like _you _have." She sneered a little on the last words.

Raven finally reacted. "You know _nothing."_

"And whose fault is that?!"

"I lost the two best friends I've ever had, along with my _brother,_ to Ozpin's impotent scheming. You have no _idea—"_

"Please. You brought that on yourself."

"I had a responsibility to fight against the council!"

"And you _chose _to leave them out of it!" Yang ran a hand through her hair. "You keep talking like it was this horrible, inevitable _thing,_ but it was _you!_ Dad and Uncle Qrow hate the council just as much as you do."

"They sided with Ozpin."

"Ozpin _protects _dragons!"

"Only when it's _convenient. _Only when he can still keep his precious position at Beacon."

"He did everything he could!"

"Cold comfort for the dragons that were just too difficult to help." She jabbed a finger towards the camp. "There are dozens of them right over there. The lost causes. _He _didn't think it was worth the effort, but _I _do."

That stopped her. She remembered Tornado, the horrible howling as every dragon on the campus thrashed and fought to save him, and Ozpin just stood there...

Fang pawed at the ground. "Nuh. Nneed... both."

Raven glared at him. "What?"

"Ozz... Ruh. Rrroww-guh. Nneed..." Fang huffed, frustrated.

"Together." Yang felt her blood heating up again. "He means you could have worked together."

"That spineless—"

"Bullshit!"

"You—"

"No! That is _bullshit!"_ Yang stalked forward and waved a finger in Raven's face. She slapped it away and glared.

_"Don't _think you can talk to me like—"

"I'll talk to you however I want! You keep calling Ozpin spineless when he _died _protecting us. And Fang's right, you could have worked _with _him. Someone inside the system trying to make it better... and someone outside it to protect everyone else."

"The old man—" Fang growled, drowning out whatever it was she was trying to say.

"You know what I think? I think you wanted an excuse."

"An _excuse?"_

"Yeah." Yang set her jaw. "It's hard for Uncle Qrow. I don't know what it was like, not really, but I know he had to work really hard to get where he is now. And you? You never even tried. I think meeting Summer... dad... _me..._ it scared you. And your big crusade was just an excuse to get the hell away from them, instead of dealing with it."

It felt good to say it. Felt even better, in a horribly sick sort of way, to see that she'd finally managed to _hurt _Raven.

"You have _no idea..."_

"Nope. Neither do you." Yang turned away and patted Fang's neck. "Come on." Then, over her shoulder, "Next time you actually _face _something that scares you, instead of running away? _Then _you can lecture me about the _real world."_

Phoenix whined—a soft, sad sound that followed Yang all the way back to the camp. Raven didn't say a word.


	31. Beneath the Surface

**Hello! It's time for our water riders to go on their first mission. In which I'm sure everything will go according to plan, with no unpleasant surprises whatsoever!**

* * *

**31\. Beneath the Surface**

* * *

_Functional._

The muscles in Barracuda's shoulders flexed on the down sweep. Glynda watched them bunch and relax, bunch and relax, blue-grey scales shining almost silver in the afternoon sunlight. Being this close to another water dragon...

She hadn't processed. She knew that. But the instant she did, something inside would _break _and it would take a long time to put it back together again... if she ever could. There wasn't time for that. The students needed to learn, they needed every possible advantage they could get in this mess they'd been dropped into.

Barracuda was tired, the strain of carrying two riders already wearing her down. Nymph and Guang had each taken several turns as well. Every time they landed for Glynda to climb into another saddle, the time spent walking to the next cliff or natural ramp gave all three of them time to rest their wings. It wasn't a perfect system, but the lake wasn't that far anyway.

Russel patted Barracuda's neck absentmindedly, and Glynda's grip on the saddle tightened. She wouldn't fall apart on them—not when she was supposed to protect them from all this. Not when she'd failed them so badly. If Ozpin were still... but he wasn't. He wouldn't pace back and forth at Ragnar's feet, that small frown creasing his brow as he muttered to himself. There would be no next phase of the grand strategy he'd kept in his head. The rest of them would just have to carry on with whatever bits and pieces they had left.

A small tremor rippled through Barracuda. Glynda tapped Russel twice on the shoulder, the signal to land. He twisted in the saddle and shouted, "But we're almost there!" He pointed at a shimmer of silver on the horizon.

Glynda arched an eyebrow at him. He at least had the decency to look sheepish as he guided Barracuda into a steep glide. They landed less than a minute later, with the water dragon stretching her wings and rolling her shoulders. Nymph and Ao Guang followed her.

"We'll walk the rest of the way," she decided. "I didn't see any decent takeoff points from the air."

As they went, she explained to them that flying to a mission location was much easier once dragons knew several different takeoff methods and were more used to carrying the weight of a rider. "That is part of the reason we wait until your second year to even begin combat training, and why under normal circumstances none of you would go on a mission like this until your third year."

"What about when we get there?" asked Russel. "If we can't take off—"

Only over a decade of teaching experience let her reply with a straight face. "As this is an aquatic Grimm, your dragons will fight in the water. Whether you enter the lake from the shore or from the air is immaterial."

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ren hiding a tiny half-smile. Neptune looked slightly nauseous. Color slowly drained from his face as the trees thinned, and they finally reached the shore of the lake. It looked peaceful, from here. Not even a ripple on the surface.

"What was described in the report?" Glynda eyed the three boys, all dressed in swimsuits, barefoot and with goggles on their foreheads.

It was Ren who answered. "A small Grimm about the size of a fishing boat."

"You said it was probably an Icky Ryan," added Russel.

Her eye twitched. "An Ichthyrion."

"Yeah. That."

Neptune started taking deep breaths. Loud deep breaths.

Glynda ignored her rising doubts. These students _needed _experience, and an Ichthyrion this small wouldn't pose much of a challenge to even one of their dragons. So she kept an eye on the deceptively placid surface of the lake, and reviewed her last few lectures on how to fight underwater—communicating with their dragons, leaving most of the straps on the saddle unbuckled so that they could resurface if necessary, and to always do so slowly and gradually to prevent pressure sickness.

This was a terrible way to structure lessons outside of an emergency like the one they'd found themselves in... but she couldn't help feeling slightly gratified by how easily she had captured their complete, undivided attention. Perhaps there was hope for them yet.

* * *

So much _talking._

Barracuda took the first chance to dive into the water, once the annoying teacher had finally stopped telling them how to fight. She already _knew _how to fight—the annoying teacher had kept scolding her for it at Beacon.

She struck out across the surface. It was slow going. With Russel on her back she couldn't just dive down like she wanted to, and she had to swim with her toes tightly closed to protect the webbing on her feet. Ao Guang soon passed her, but Nymph lagged several dragonlengths behind them.

"Hurry up!" Barracuda hissed. "You should have left your stupid wimpy rider on the shore."

Nymph snapped at her, prompting a panicked shout from Neptune. Russel put a palm flat on her back and said, "I don't see why you're trying to fight the Grimm _and _Nymph. Seems like you're making extra work for yourself... but whatever." She flicked an ear at him irritably. She knew _that._ Now Nymph was keeping up with them.

They were near the middle of the lake. Neptune clung white-knuckled to Nymph's saddle, his face pale and his eyes wide. Barracuda considered splashing him with her tail, until a flicker of movement drew her attention. It was a ripple, long and winding. A black fin poked out of the water, then disappeared again.

"Go time," Russel said.

Barracuda tried to speed up, but she was still tired from carrying the annoying teacher. She fell behind Nymph and Guang, and was almost thirty feet away when the Grimm finally surfaced. Even knowing the sort of thing she would see... even knowing that this was the whole reason the Dragonries existed, the reason she had been hatched for Russel... even knowing that, she felt a bolt of fear at the sight of it.

It wasn't big. The sleek black body wasn't even half as long as the runt, Twiggy. A long muzzle flashed with jagged teeth, but Barracuda's were longer. It was the _eyes _that bothered her. They bulged behind the blank white mask, seething with blind, mad hatred. It wanted her dead. It wanted her rider dead. It wanted _everyone _dead. If it got the chance, it would tear every single frail little human to pieces.

Nymph lunged and sank her teeth into its side. There was a horrible screech, and it twisted around with its teeth gnashing. As it thrashed its tail lifted part of the way out of the water. Barracuda had never seen an Ichthyrion, not even a picture of one, so she wasn't surprised by the lack of a spiked fluke at the end. She noticed nothing strange about the way it kept going, like a thick black rope, until it disappeared under the surface.

The Grimm struggled free, wrenching out of Nymph's jaws and leaving a dark cloud of ichor in the water. It snapped at Ao Guang, who drew his head back and batted at it with one paw. His claws raked its side.

Then Barracuda was finally close enough. She bit down on one of its fins just as it tried to slip under the water. The ichor tasted horribly bitter. She dragged it up towards the surface, trying to get it close enough to attack with her claws. It squirmed free of her soon after that, though by now it was limping along with only three fins.

"This is _easy!" _She scratched at the monster's face. It shied away from her, slipping under the water and swimming deeper.

"Let's not celebrate before we kill it," said Nymph—and the three of them dove.

Barracuda fell behind again. She'd pushed too hard when she'd attacked the Grimm, and the webbing between her toes was stinging. From where she was swimming she could see the moment Neptune froze. Light from the surface danced across his face in strange ripples. His eyes closed, his mouth opened, bubbles escaping...

_Useless idiot!_ "Nymph! Go back up, now!"

The other dragon didn't ask questions. She just shot towards the light above. Now it was only Barracuda and Ao Guang heading down and down, the water around them growing darker and darker.

Barracuda would have lost the Grimm if it weren't for the lines of red all over its body, glowing brighter now than the distant sunlight. She couldn't tell where Guang was anymore, and Russel tapped her left shoulder once—the signal warning her that he would need to surface for air soon. She kept paddling for a few seconds, even though she knew she couldn't catch the Grimm like this. It was only getting farther ahead of her.

Reluctantly, Barracuda turned around. Swimming upward had to be slower—the annoying teacher had explained why, something about Russel's body being squishy and full of bubbles, but all she really needed to remember was that he might die if they went too fast. So she hadn't gone far at all before a stream of enormous bubbles rushed past her.

Slowly, Barracuda turned her head back downward. All she could see through the murk at the bottom of the lake was a faint red haze. She hesitated. Was there time to stop at the surface, or—

Russel tapped frantically on her right shoulder, the signal to dive. Barracuda obeyed, arrowing through the water as quickly as she could, her eyes straining through the silty murk of the lake's bed.

* * *

Ren winced as Ao Guang dove still deeper, slowly gaining on the retreating Grimm. He could feel the pressure in his eardrums, and the water down here was freezing. Remembering Professor Goodwitch's lessons, he tapped once against Guang's left shoulder. He was starting to think they'd need to regroup at the surface and—

Guang surged forward and clamped his teeth down at the base of the monster's tail. It struggled, twisting to try and bite him. He mauled its side, the murky water grew even darker with Grimm ichor, the struggling slowed to a slow, lethargic twitching... and it went still.

Well. Never mind, then. Ren tapped at Guang's shoulder a few more times to signal for him to start rising. His eyes strained in the dark. He could just make out the silhouette of the thing's tail, looping in a wide arc around the two of them before disappearing into the gloom. Odd—he didn't remember them being so long.

Even as the thought formed, the Grimm exploded into motion. The loop of tail closed around them both, pinning Ren to Guang's back, and _heaved._ As they sank towards the bottom of the lake the silt thickened until it was more muck than water, and the darkness was absolute. Even the dim light of the Grimm was snuffed out.

Bubbles brushed Ren's face, and Guang shuddered underneath him. The tail tightened further. His ribs screamed in protest. He looked around and couldn't even see the distant light of the surface—only blackness in every direction. His hands scrabbled for the two lone straps still tying him to the saddle, but it was useless anyway with the thick tail wrapped around him. He couldn't just...

A rosy glow caught his eye. For a mad instant some part of him was convinced that this was daylight. Then the tail pulled him still closer, and the light divided into two massive, bulbous eyes. And below them... below them were teeth longer than he was tall.

Ren kicked and struggled. Guang bit down on the tail and shook his head furiously, trying to tear it apart. Only it wasn't a tail at all—it was connected to the bone mask of the _true _Grimm. The real monster, whose mouth opened and opened until it seemed like there was nothing else in the world.

His eyes squeezed shut. He saw teal ones in front of him, cheeks scattered with freckles... and the worst thing, worse even than the rows and rows of teeth like sharpened spears, was realizing just how badly they had wasted yesterday. How many minutes, how many _seconds_ spent apart that he would have given anything for in that instant.

A harsh cry echoed strangely through the water. His eyes snapped open, and outlined faintly in red was the long, sinewy shape of... Nymph? Barracuda? Then she got closer and he saw the mohawk. Russel reared back in alarm as he took in the source of the light for the first time, a few small bubbles escaping.

Barracuda scratched at the thing's eyes. It reared back, and Ren and Guang were pulled along in its wake. She circled around, snapping and clawing at it, keeping it too busy to finish them off. It swam almost as fast as she did, and every time it lunged at her its long teeth missed her by mere inches.

Only one of Ren's arms were free. He scrabbled at the Grimm, but he could hardly even feel his fingers. His head spun. Russel unbuckled him from the saddle and pulled as hard as he could, but the effort was useless. He turned his head towards the Grimm, then to Ren. Their eyes met. He held up a finger—_just a minute!_—and kicked for the surface.

* * *

Breathe in.

_The water is cold._

Breathe out.

_The water is clear._

Neptune's hands shook against Nymph's back. He was freezing, his hair and swim trunks soaked and plastered to his skin. His bare feet were still underwater, his legs strapped to the saddle, _tangled—_

Breathe in. _The water is cold and clear. Nothing like the swamp._ He looked down... and _reeled, _bile rising in his throat as he stared into horrible, endless darkness. The lake hadn't looked this deep from the shore.

"Nneh." Nymph craned her neck back and licked his face. "Ssafe."

Was he? There _was _a Grimm under the water, even if the dragons were tearing it to pieces without much fuss. His fingers drummed against the saddle. Goodwitch still stood on the shore, watching. Probably seeing him _sitting _here, doing nothing while his friends—well, friend and Russel—fought a monster. And where the hell _were_ they?!

Russel broke the surface with a gasp, then started hacking and coughing uncontrollably. Barracuda was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey!" Neptune's hands gripped the saddle so hard he lost feeling in his fingers. "What happened?"

"Down—" Russel groped for Nymph and held onto one of her forelegs to keep his head above the surface. He coughed and spat out a mouthful of water. "Stuck. Ren and Guang—this fucking thing is _huge, _and the _teeth—!"_

The words dissolved into meaningless buzzing. Neptune forced himself to take great, gulping breaths. Nymph met his eyes. For an instant he was frozen, _hating _himself, thinking that maybe he should just unstrap himself and let Russel...

No. Russel looked half-drowned already, and if Ren and Guang were both trapped... He looked back at Nymph and, slowly, he nodded.

She surged forward, and there was no time for second thoughts—only enough to take a huge gulp of air, cling to his dragon's saddle, and hope like hell he could do this. Then the water was over his head, and they shot down into the dark.

He was suspended. There was no telling which way was up, no light, only the horrible slimy water pressing in around him. Plants tangling around his legs as he kicked and struggled. His own heartbeat in his ears, beating frantically as his head pounded and his chest ached...

_Cold._ His hands tightened on something solid. _The water is cold and clear._ Not like the swamp. Nymph's muscles flexed underneath him, and he ran a hand along the scales of her neck to ground himself. She wouldn't let him be trapped here. He could trust her, like he trusted her in the air. He _had _to trust her.

Soon the light of the surface was lost in the murk. It was worse like this, mired in mud and slime. More like the marsh. Except there was a light in the dark—a dim red glow that flashed on and off as a shadow passed in front of it.

They were closer now—and Neptune realized why Russel had kept talking about the _teeth._ They were longer than he was, needle-thin, jutting from a mouth that was wide enough to swallow a dragon. Bulging eyes, a thick black cord connecting it to the shredded lure... and Ao Guang tangled up in it, his struggles already weak and sluggish.

Nymph's jaws clamped down on the long lure. Guang hardly seemed to notice her—his eyes were half-lidded, and a few bubbles drifted out of his nostrils to race for the surface. Barracuda saw, though, and swam over to help. Together they wrenched in opposite directions, _twisting—_

The Grimm's jaws snapped shut, missing Barracuda's tail by inches. Then the lure went limp, and a cloud of ichor bloomed from it. Nymph tore it away from Guang, one severed end trailing behind her. The monster thrashed in pain and bit again, this time grazing Barracuda's hind leg.

Neptune fumbled with the straps on his legs. He undid them. And then Nymph darted forward, away from him, to grab Guang and haul him towards the surface. Barracuda charged the Grimm, clawing at its eyes and forcing it away from Ren, who floated motionless in the water.

_Swim,_ he told himself. His body wouldn't move.

_The water is cold. The water is cold. The water is cold—_

Neptune repeated it over and over like a mantra as he flailed through the water. He reached under Ren's arms and kicked for the surface. Seconds later he froze, his heart pounding. Was that too fast? Was it too _slow?_ How was he supposed to know when drowning was worse than decompression sickness?!

_Hell with it._ He kicked upwards, moving as slowly as he dared, wincing as his ears popped. Light danced across his face. Ren's hair floated like a silky cloud in all directions. His fingers and toes were numb.

Then, finally, his head broke the surface. He coughed and hacked just like Russel had, and then he spent several seconds with his mind wonderfully, blessedly blank—there was no room for anything except how wonderful it was to breathe, and trying not to ruin the moment by throwing up.

When something grabbed his shoulder he let out a short scream, but it was only Russel. "Is he breathing?"

Neptune's heart sank. He tried to look, but all he could tell was that Ren's eyes were closed. "I'm not sure."

"Shit." Russel stretched out his arms. "Gimme. I'll get him back to Goodwitch."

"But—"

"I'm the better swimmer." Neptune... really couldn't argue with that.

A splash drew his attention to Nymph. She was struggling to hold Ao Guang above the water while he shuddered and coughed. His tail thrashed erratically behind him, but he was breathing. And Ren... Ren probably _hadn't _been.

Neptune couldn't even worry about it properly. Seconds later something _erupted _out of the water, a huge wave broke over his head, and he went under again. By the time he resurfaced, still spluttering, there was no sign of whatever had dunked him... but he had a feeling he knew. He grit his teeth and stuck his head underwater, peering through his goggles. The telltale red glow shot towards him. He shrieked, or tried to, and lost half his air. Then he paddled frantically to one side, but it wasn't _enough—_

Barracuda's tail slammed into him and sent him flying out of the water, just before the Grimm's teeth slammed shut on the space where he'd just been. As he spun he caught a glimpse of the thing. It was bleeding badly now, one eye gone, the other glowing with hatred. Then he hit the lake face-first, flailed some more, and finally got himself upright and treading water.

Guang's coughing had slowed down, and he was swimming on his own. Nymph reared up out of the water and roared a challenge. Barracuda joined the cry, clamping her jaws down on one of the monster's rear fins.

It struggled, almost ripped out of her grip—but before it had the chance Nymph grappled it with all four legs, digging her claws into its sides. Ao Guang opened his mouth, and a jet of water slammed into the Grimm's face. It made a noise like a train whistle and finally thrashed free... but it lost one of its fins and most of its tail in the process. It limped through the water, its mouth opening and closing convulsively, until Guang circled around it and bit down just behind its head. Then, finally, it started to dissolve.

Neptune felt like someone had just cut his strings. He went limp, and then his head slipped under the surface and he was treading water again, his heart pounding so hard he thought something might pop. It was too much, it was too much and he just wanted _out._

Cool scales met his reaching fingers. He stopped swimming and clung to Nymph's head, his whole body trembling. "Nneh," she said, and lifted him onto her back. He curled into himself, still shivering, though now with cold as much as fright.

It was a long way back to the shore. When they got there Professor Goodwitch was kneeling next to Ren, holding his head as he coughed up lake water. Russel had collapsed nearby, his legs sprawled in the dirt and a towel draped over his shoulders.

"Okay," he said, when Neptune and the dragons walked up to them. "What the _fuck?"_

"Language," Goodwitch snapped. Ren made a noise that might have been the start of a laugh, but it dissolved into a coughing fit that shook his whole body.

Neptune tried to say something, but it came out as muffled gibberish. His legs gave out. Nymph caught him with one foreleg and gently lowered him to the ground beside the others. It took a moment before he could manage a coherent thought. "What... what _was _that thing?"

Goodwitch helped Ren sit up. "As none of you have described it to me, I haven't the faintest clue."

_"Teeth," _Russel said, and shuddered.

"It looked like it had the other Grimm on a fishing line..." Neptune trailed off as another shiver went through him.

Goodwitch frowned. "That... doesn't sound like a freshwater Grimm. It must have come from somewhere else—if I remember correctly, there's a river connecting this lake to the ocean. If it swam here in a heavy storm, it would have gotten stuck once water levels receded."

"Then why did it have so many _teeth?!" _Russel demanded. "That was _way _more fucking teeth than we signed up for!"

"Grimm that live deep in the ocean tend to be... strange."

_"Strange? _Try goddamn _terrifying—!"_

Neptune tuned them out after that. He watched Ren's chest rising and falling, reassuring himself. Then Nymph pressed her snout against his side and crooned, and he wrapped both arms around her neck. "I did tell you," he murmured. "When you picked me. I told you I was useless."

"Nno," she said sternly. "Nneh-toon... buh. Brray."

There was a lump in his throat. "Are you... do you mean... brave?"

She nodded and started to purr. "Bray."

Neptune buried his face in her scales, his shoulders shaking as he took great, shuddering breaths. "Sorry," he managed. "I'm not upset. I'm..." He trailed off, because he was pretty sure the word he was looking for didn't exist. He felt like a wet dish towel, damp and wrung out. He felt like he'd just touched the sky...

And more than anything, he felt like sleeping for a week.


	32. Midnight Ride

**Happy Friday! I come bearing lots of dragons on missions.**

* * *

**32\. Midnight Ride**

* * *

Thick shadows fell between the trunks of massive trees. Leaves rustled like slithering snakes, and strange noises echoed in the distance. The air was alive with malice, and the darkness was filled with hateful eyes...

Zircon shivered and pressed a little closer to Nimbus. Mudslide scoffed and whacked his side gently with her tail before trotting ahead, walking side by side with Huo. Pepper followed behind them—she wasn't taking part in the fighting, and wouldn't unless things started to go wrong.

"This is... a lot less fun than I expected."

"Sun," Sage said patiently, "We're fighting bloodthirsty creatures of darkness. It's not really supposed to be _fun—"_

Professor Port chortled. "Nonsense! Remember boys, if you do what you love, you won't work a day in your life!"

Zircon reared up indignantly. "Is he serious?!"

"Probably." Huo lunged into the bushes and came up with a small, foxlike Grimm squirming in his jaws. "And come on, this is great!" There was a small _crunch,_ and the monster dissipated into black smoke. "Getting kind of boring though, I hope we find something b—"

"No!" Zircon put his paws over his ears. "Stop it!"

"Quit cringing like a stupid hatchling," snarled Mudslide.

Huo hissed and snapped at her. "Hey! Who asked you?!"

"Ah, shit!" Sky pulled on the reins—his were made of old rope, since he was using one of the tribe's makeshift saddles.

Sun patted Huo's neck. "Let's bite the Grimm, not each other, okay?" The dragon puffed smoke into his rider's face, making him hack and cough. "Ugh, Huo!" He waved a hand to dissipate it and sighed. "Seriously though. This... kinda sucks. I mean, for one thing—we're, like, team _hiss _right now."

Sage shifted in the saddle. "Uh-_huh."_

"And, I mean, look at them!" He waved a hand at all three SSSN dragons. "It's all... unbalanced! Why are we doing our first mission without our team's alpha dragon?"

"Yeah." Scarlet snickered. "You're really missing Nymph right now."

"Look, sorry... but that's just dumb." Sky gestured wildly with both arms. "Do you know how lucky we are?! We're out here with Port, can you imagine what this would be like with _Vernal?"_

"Is she, uh... is she always like that?" asked Sun.

"Nope. I don't know what the hell you people did to piss her off, but she's even _worse _than normal whenever you're around."

Professor Port cleared his throat. "As honored as I am to be your first choice, let's focus on the Grimm, shall we?"

"What Grimm?"

A shadow lunged from the nearby bushes. Zircon reared up onto his hind legs, letting out a startled bark and almost tossing Sage to the ground. Nimbus pounced on it. He overshot slightly, but still knocked it over. Mudslide darted in and clamped her teeth on its neck. She shook once, and it died.

"Always be on your guard!" Port declared. "Even the weakest of foes can be dangerous given a surprise attack!" Zircon whimpered. Sage ran a soothing hand down his neck. Mudslide glared at him, her green eyes narrowed and her teeth slightly bared.

For a while they walked in silence, trying to follow Port's instructions. It was mostly Huo and Mudslide that picked off the Vexins, though Nimbus managed to catch a few and shred them in his claws. Sun kept shifting positions in his saddle.

"Do you think they're all this easy?"

"Probably," Sky said, with a shrug. "They're supposed to be, anyway."

Port nodded. "Every mission we selected is one that your dragons are more than capable of handling, even without any combat experience."

Huo tossed his head indignantly. "No combat experience? I fought _two _council dragons with Fang!"

"You ran away from two council dragons with Fang," Mudslide sneered. He aimed another bite at her, which she dodged.

"Huo!" Sun gave him a sharp tap on the shoulder. "Quit it!"

More Grimm died. Zircon's heart raced a little slower every time one of them burst out of the bushes. He even aimed a swipe at one that came too close to him and Nimbus, though he ducked away at the last second and missed. Mudslide pinned it down and crushed it under one paw.

"This is also a valuable lesson in Grimm behavior," Port told them. "Most Grimm this small prefer to travel in packs or swarms—"

_Swarms?!_

"—but Vexins are an exception. They are solitary, weak creatures... but an infestation can get out of hand quickly. No one has ever seen how they reproduce, but where there is one there will soon be more! We'll need to find all of them if we're going to clear out this area."

"...I wonder how the others are doing."

"Sun," Scarlet said patiently, "Stop fretting."

"I'm not—what do you mean _fretting, _I'm just _wondering."_

"About Neptune."

He slumped in the saddle. "I mean, _yeah, _but... I just hope he's okay."

Sage tugged on the reins. Zircon shifted closer to Huo, his shoulder brushing his brother's hot scales. His partner reached out and rested a hand on Sun's back. "He'll be alright. He has Nymph with him, and Ren and Guang."

Sky snorted. "What's Russel, chopped liver?"

"I apologize, I didn't mean—"

The snort turned into a full laugh. "Dude, chill."

"The _point," _Scarlet said, "is that Neptune will be fine."

"But—"

"Nope! No what-ifs."

"Focus on what you can do now," Sage added.

"Like... killing tiny Grimm?"

"Exactly."

Huo scoffed, flicking his ears irritably. "Like _he's _doing any of the work," he grumbled. He reached out, absentmindedly squishing one of the Vexins under his paw.

* * *

"So..."

Jade watched Tank's tail flick back and forth, his head ducked low to the ground. He rumbled uncertainly, then said, "Do you, um—"

Cyclone twisted his head around and hissed, _"Shut up." _Tank whimpered, his ears pinning back, and shut up. Jade exchanged a look with Rudder, then Storm_._

Vernal was just as irritable whenever one of their riders tried to talk to one another. "If it's not about the Grimm," she snapped, "save your breath."

Jade growled—softly, so that Cyclone wouldn't hear. It was annoying, especially since her rider had only just explained to the others about Cinder. They were starting to understand how good she was, but for some reason things still seemed tense between Emerald and Ruby. Talking more might fix it, and she'd been so excited when she found out that Storm would be coming with her and Rudder...

Ruby glanced at Emerald, then away. Jade felt her rider's hands clench against her scales. She huffed, and the noise made Mercury glance at them. She bared her teeth at him. He took one look at Emerald and rolled his eyes.

"Hey!" he called out. "What are we killing again?"

Vernal twisted around and glared at him like he was a particularly nasty insect. "You've been told. Twice."

"Oh, yeah. They're the frog things, right?"

_"Rainids."_

"Uh-huh. Those. How dangerous are they, anyway?"

Vernal's lip curled. "We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, here. Cyclone could've killed one of these a week out of the egg." He purred in smug satisfaction.

While she spoke, Mercury turned and gave Emerald a very significant look. A very significant look that meant absolutely nothing to Jade, and her rider didn't seem to have much of a clue either. He whirled back around the moment Vernal stopped talking. "Right," he said, drawing the word out into a drawl. "Tell me, o wise mentor, where the hell are these things? We've been walking for ages."

She went off into a long, condescending rant. Mercury tapped Rudder's neck and, when he brought his head closer, whispered something in his ear. Then her brother dropped back a bit to pass the message on to Jade. "He says to make your rider talk already."

Talk? Jade tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Why?" Rudder shrugged and moved back towards the front as Vernal's rant wound down.

Well. It _was _what she wanted, and if Mercury's compulsive need to annoy everyone he ever met bought her the distraction she needed... "'Awk," she told Emerald, and bumped her with her nose. Then she oh-so-casually drifted closer to Storm, greeting her with a friendly sniff.

"Um... hey."

Ruby bounced a little in her saddle. "Hi!" She glanced at Mercury and Vernal. "That's, um... interesting."

Emerald snorted. "It's nice to see it aimed at someone who deserves it for a change."

"Mercury or Vernal?"

"Yes."

Ruby dipped her head so that her hair fell across her face, hiding her grin. "That's kinda mean."

"So are they."

"Mercury's not so bad..."

"You've never lived with him."

Several feet away, Mercury was snickering. "Yeah, you're real tough. When was the last time _you _fought something instead of letting a dragon handle it for you?"

"Only _idiots _try to fight Grimm without dragons."

"Right." He turned his head just a little, meeting Jade's eyes and smirking. "Because you and I are too weak to fight them ourselves."

Vernal looked like she was on the cusp of catching on fire. "That's not what I—"

"Hey, um..." Ruby shifted nervously in the saddle. "Are you okay?"

"What?"

"I mean, you seem kind of... upset? Or angry, or... I don't know."

"No!" Emerald startled so badly that one of her heels hit Jade's side, and her startled yelp was _almost _enough to draw Vernal's attention—until Mercury spread his arms behind his head and leaned back, smirking. "No. It's not like that."

"Okay. It just sort of seems like you've been, um... avoiding me, maybe?" Then, under her breath, "Again..."

"I'm not. I just—I've been busy dealing with all the work we're doing around the camp."

Jade picked her head up, one ear flicking back. She'd hadn't noticed before, but now that she _thought _about it... Emerald had been busy lately. Busier than she strictly needed to be to stay in Raven's camp. Suspiciously busy, even.

She let Emerald keep stammering out excuses until their conversation turned lighter. To pass the time she chatted with Tank, who was almost as quiet as Rudder and always seemed to be half expecting her to bite him. Their conversation petered out quickly, with him so timid and Jade so distracted by her rider. She _had _to get the bottom of what was going on here.

* * *

"This is the _worst,"_ Nora declared, sitting down between Freya's forelegs with a huff.

Freya nuzzled her rider's head, huffing and blowing her hair in all directions. Her eyes were halfway lidded. They'd flown for a while, which was fun even if it was exhausting, but after that the whole day had been spent walking... then when they'd finally found the Grimm they were supposed to fight, a small Ursa, it had died within minutes. She _almost _felt bad for it—Fang had been eager to practice spitting fire by then.

"Bad," she agreed.

They were a little ways away from the others—three-quarters of team RWBY, unfortunately including Yang. Unfortunately because she'd spent the whole mission glaring daggers at Raven, and the feeble attempts at conversation the others made had died early deaths. Freya didn't think it was possible, but she would have preferred Cyclone and Vernal.

"I don't get why Guang couldn't come with us." Nora leaned back against Freya's chest. "Rudder could go with the other water dragons. Or we could go to the lake and... you know, help from the sky!"

Freya let out a questioning rumble. She had no idea how to fight in a lake... or on land, really. They'd learned some from their professors, but fighting Grimm was different than playing with Guang. And fighting other dragons for real would be different than _both._ Her eyes drifted shut.

Soon they'd have to hike up a cliff so that they could take off and head back to the camp... at least she could see the others again. She should see how Twiggy was doing...

The thought leeched away what little energy she had left. She slumped to the ground, still curled around Nora, her head lolling to one side. What was the point of fighting Grimm like this, really? They were still enemies of the council. They still couldn't go home. And even if they won in the end, it wouldn't bring Titan back.

* * *

"This waiting thing? I hate it." Jaune scratched absentmindedly under Twiggy's chin, his shoulder leaning against Pyrrha's.

No one was back yet. No one was due back yet, either.

Twiggy whined softly and pressed her nose to his arm. "What—no, no! That's not what I meant. It's not your fault, okay? I just... sort of wish our friends could take more than, like, a week of downtime before they're ready to explode."

Pyrrha made a small noise in the back of her throat—like a tiny, half-formed chuckle. Jaune immediately decided that the waiting was _completely _worth it. "I'm afraid I'm not much better."

"Yeah, neither am I. That's why I hate the waiting."

At least most of them had the decency to show up on time. Nora's group was even early—though that meant that she had a lot of time to get antsy. Then anxious. Then, an hour after Ren was due back, when everyone else was already sitting in a giant clump, Jaune reluctantly suggested that they could arm-wrestle to pass the time. He suspected he'd be feeling that decision for a while.

Finally, they spotted the last three shadows on the horizon. Jaune relaxed, until Russel and Professor Goodwitch dismounted and the other two stayed slumped in the saddle. Nora broke into a sprint. "Are you guys okay?!"

Ren lifted his head. He unbuckled his legs and, with no other warning, jumped off of Ao Guang and wrapped Nora in a hug. "We're alright." Ao Guang nuzzled at the pair of them, then reared back and sneezed.

"What happened?" Pyrrha asked.

Russel jabbed a finger at the sky. "What happened? _What happened?!_ Well somehow, even though the wimpy little baby Grimm we were _supposed _to be killing turned out to have teeth taller than _me,_ we didn't fucking _die!"_

At that last word, the tables abruptly turned in Ren and Nora's hug. He made a strangled noise.

"And Ren almost drowned, so maybe don't suffocate him?"

Nora switched from squeezing his ribcage to wrapping his arm in a grip that was probably cutting off circulation. Jaune glanced at Pyrrha, and without really planning it they both leaned in and gave Ren brief hugs of their own.

Neptune, meanwhile, slid out of the saddle and staggered a few paces before his own team caught him. "Never again," he groaned.

Eventually they got the full story of the mission gone wrong. Sun had to rescue Neptune from one of Nora's hugs, and she even gave Russel a friendly punch on the arm. Raven made no comment, except a small smirk and a cryptic remark about how it was the water dragons that had actually learned something today. Yang acted like she hadn't spoken at all.

That night, Jaune was unceremoniously evicted from the tent he'd been sharing with Ren. He stood outside it for a moment, slightly dazed. Then he crept towards Nora's tent, which she'd been letting Pyrhra use. He froze just as he touched the zipper. Deep, steady breathing came from inside.

He couldn't wake her up. Instead he wandered over to where their dragons slept, listening to their deep snores. Jaune didn't really want to wake Twiggy, either—but when he found her, she was already alert and watching him intently.

"Hey, girl," he whispered. "Mind if I get under your wing?"

She stared at him for a moment. Then, very slowly, she leaned forward... and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

"Uh... Twiggy?"

His feet left the ground.

"What are you—" He cut off when she dropped him on her back and, without so much as a word, marched off into the woods. "Um... okay?"

Jaune didn't talk to her on the way. There was a strange hush in the air—maybe it was just the stars overhead, or the pitch blackness of the woods, but it made him reluctant to break the silence. He didn't have a flashlight. They moved slowly, Twiggy feeling her way between the trees, the hair slowly standing up on the back of his neck.

It occurred to him that this was a terrible idea. A whole tribe of renegade riders less than a mile away meant there probably weren't Grimm out here, but... well, _probably._ Before he could say as much, Twiggy stopped.

For a second, he didn't realize why. Then he squinted, and realized that the absolute darkness of the ground beneath them gave way much too quickly to the starry sky. Sort of like it stopped very abruptly about thirty feet away.

"Twiggy?"

She started to run.

"Hey!" Jaune yelped. He tried to cling to the saddle, but Twiggy wasn't wearing one. All he could feel were smooth scales under his fingers. Instead he ducked against her neck and wrapped his arms around it. "Wait, hold on a second—!"

Twiggy jumped. Jaune's stomach dropped, and for a moment all he could think about was taking deep breaths so that he wouldn't throw up. Then she passed the apex of her jump. It was like he was ten again, on the swingsets, going just a little too high. The moment when the swing went parallel with the ground and _dropped, _and it felt like his heart had followed it all the way to the ground.

Her wings flapped, and their dive turned into a slow climb. Jaune loosened his grip just enough to look up. The night was cloudless. He couldn't see the forest underneath him—he was falling upwards into an endless sea of stars.

A few minutes later, Twiggy landed heavily on the same cliff. Jaune stayed where he was, still clinging to her neck. He had to force himself to let go. "That was..."

Silver eyes blinked at him. Twiggy rumbled softly, licking at his cheeks, and he realized for the first time that they were wet. "Sorry," he whispered—and with the sound, the spell broke, and the reality of it sank in."I'm just happy..."

Twiggy nuzzled at his side, purring triumphantly. He scratched behind her ears, leaning against her neck, his eyes drifting closed... and he shot upright. She let out a startled bark.

"Sorry girl," he said, grinning sheepishly. "But we _really _shouldn't fall asleep out here."


	33. Paranoia

**Hello! I'm here with a new chapter, starring Ao Guang as worst wingman—with a surprise cameo from one of Cinder's associates.**

* * *

**33\. Paranoia**

* * *

Pitch dark. The only sound was of their breathing as they lay in their sleeping bags, side by side. Nora hummed quietly, and grinned when Ren hummed back.

"I missed doing this," she whispered. "Like when we were kids."

"We didn't usually have a tent back then."

"Tents just block out the stars anyway." Nora perked up a little. "Can we—"

"The tent stays up. I'd rather be dry for a while."

"Oh. Sorry."

He turned his head, and she saw a slight smile on his face. "That was a joke, Nora."

She whacked his arm. "It's not _funny."_

"...No. It wasn't."

Nora shifted onto her side, eyes straining to make out more than his outline. It was... they'd been in danger plenty of times before, but always _together._ "I wish I was there."

"Mm."

"Did you wish I was there?"

"You're asking if I wished you were trapped underwater with me, about to get eaten by a killer Grimm?"

"Yeah."

"...A little. Mostly I wished that I'd made different choices."

She wished it wasn't so hard to see his face. "Which choices?"

"A lot of them." He let all his breath out in a huff. "You remember when we met?"

"Nope! Totally forgot the most important day of my life. Of _course _I remember, dummy."

That was definitely a smile. "Well... I regret how I acted that morning. I hate to think that I almost blended into a sea of faces. Just one more person who wanted to help, but didn't."

"You're not still feeling guilty about that, are you?"

"I try not to. I don't want to wallow in it, I want to remember..."

"Remember what?"

"Something my father told me, afterward."

Nora went very still. She'd heard about Ren's parents over the years, but only in bits and pieces. He didn't like to talk about them, and what he remembered was fragmented. She didn't remember much of anything about hers.

"He told me that I needed to learn to take action. That standing there and letting something happen was as bad as participating."

"If you're trying to say you're a bad person, I might have to fight you." Nora waved a fist menacingly. "A thumb war... to the death!"

"It's not that. I've been trying to follow his advice... but recently I realized that I'd fallen into the same bad habit of freezing. Of being so afraid of the possible consequences of my actions that I don't take any action at all."

All of a sudden, Nora could sort of relate—talking felt _really _dangerous right about now. "Actions, like...?"

Ren got so quiet that for a second she was afraid he'd fallen asleep—and if he did she was _definitely _tickling him awake, he'd asked her not to do that anymore but this was an_ emergency!_ When he finally spoke, his voice was soft and sheepish. "Like... asking to kiss you?"

She let out a small, involuntary shriek of delight, then clapped a hand over her mouth. "Nora!" Ren waved a hand frantically, his voice still pitched to a whisper. "The others!"

Her eyes went wide. "Oh no, what if I woke Pyrrha up?!" They waited in dead silence. Then, something tapped against the outside of the tent. Cringing, Nora unzipped it, already halfway through an apology.

Ao Guang blinked at her. He licked her face and pushed his head further inside, sniffing Ren. "Gud?" he asked, staring at them in concern.

Nora was really glad it was too dark to see her face. "We're okay, Guang. Go back to sleep." He sneezed once, directly on Ren, and then retreated.

Dead silence. Slowly, Ren looked down at his shirt—which was now slightly damp. "That... could have gone better."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. You're important to me, and I'd never want to endanger our friendship over this. I just wanted to tell you, even though I know you probably don't think of me like—"

"Dummy," she said fondly, and kissed him.

* * *

Jeering crowds pressed in around the ring—shouting and waving money in the air. They hurled insults at a lumbering earth dragon as it shrank away from its opponent's claws until, in desperation, it snapped at the larger water dragon. A few flecks of blood hit the rubber mat underneath them.

The cries of delight and dismay that went up echoed off high cinderblock walls. A group of three turned away from their lost bets in disgust and called for the bartender. Another pair hugged one another, laughing and clapping each other on the back. A lone woman handed a stack of lien cards to her neighbor and shouted, "That little fucker better win, now!"

Flickering fluorescent lights illuminated little islands in the massive space. The pit itself was washed in white, with stark black shadows writhing underneath the two dragons that wrestled one another behind thick metal bars. There was another bright spot around the bar, and more scattered throughout the converted warehouse. But in between them, shadows grew thick in the windowless room. One corner was almost pitch dark. A hooded figure sat at a table, both their hands clenched into fists. Watching.

On the opposite side of the warehouse, the door swung open, letting in the dim yellow light of streetlamps. "Ladies! Gentlemen!" The voice carried all the way to the dark corner. "Have I got the specimen for you!"

The hooded figure stood up sharply. That... had _not _been the plan.

Several seconds passed, and the action around the pit ground to a halt as everyone turned to stare at the interloper. Even the dragons paused, once the crowd stopped riling them up. Roman Torchwick tipped his hat to the room at large. "I'd like you all to meet the _future _of pit fighting! The spectacle of spectacles!"

Neo wasn't sure what the hell he thought he was playing at—he was supposed to make a distraction, but _this _hadn't been what she'd had in mind. Still, she _did _recognize the signal when she saw it. She slipped away from the darkened corner, making for a door marked employees only. And, just as she twisted the handle...

"That's right! The ultimate fighting edge! This dragon... is _invisible!"_

She paused. Then she tugged the door open and ducked inside, resigning herself to getting the job done _much _faster than usual. There was a hallway, dimly lit. Two doors. Neo pressed her ear to the first and heard hissing and clanging behind it. The other was silent. One was probably cages, the other...

A desk, a chair, and a computer. Papers everywhere. She flicked through them, careful to leave everything exactly where it had been. _Nothing, nothing, nothing..._ and then she picked up a pizza delivery menu and found a little cup with a set of keys inside.

Neo took two pictures—one with the papers hiding them, and one without. Then she turned on her heel and walked back the way she'd come. She slipped back into the main room, getting a few more snapshots of the layout as she went, and...

"—really don't believe me, just watch!" Roman waved a hand towards the pit. "Your two against my one. We'll see who comes out on top."

"There's no _fucking _dragon!" someone shouted—_screamed, _really—at the kind of pitch and volume that told Neo it was not the first time this had been pointed out to him.

"Of course there is, Phyllis just pet him. Didn't you, Phyllis?"

"My name's not—"

"See? They can fly, breathe underwater, melt steel, and move mountains! What's a little invisibility compared to that?"

Neo rolled her eyes and sent him a quick text—_Done. _The moment he felt it, his speech stalled slightly. "Well," he said, backing towards the exit. "If you're all going to act like this, I'll take my _incredible _business opportunity elsewhere. Good _day!"_ And he turned on his heel with righteous indignation, making a show out of holding the huge metal door open long enough for an invisible dragon to walk through.

Roman was radiating smugness when they met up again outside. "You said I couldn't do it."

"You're an idiot," she signed.

"No, no, an _idiot _would have tried to make up a believable lie. Think about it—who's going to think _that _was a ploy?"

Neo flicked his hat and watched him scramble to readjust it. "You're just lucky I can search a room in under three minutes."

"Yeah, well." He spread his hands. "It got a _little _dicey at the end there, but I did it! More than a _dozen _fighting pits, and I never used the same lie twice!"

"Do you want me to steal you a trophy?"

"That's so _sweet..."_ He smirked. "But in this case, greatness is its own reward."

Neo rolled her eyes and sent out the last photographs. Then she slid her scroll into her pocket and glanced briefly over her shoulder at the seedy fighting pit they'd just left. Her eyes narrowed. Whatever Cinder was planning, it better end with all these places on _fire._

* * *

"Ang..." Phoenix's eyes were half lidded as she tilted her head to give Yang better access. She'd learned that right under her chin was her favorite spot to be scratched—funny, since Fang would probably snap at her if she tried the same thing on him.

Phoenix purred softly and licked her cheek. "Lo."

"Hi to you, too."

Fang touched noses with the older dragon, rumbling a greeting.

They stood there a few minutes, Yang quietly petting Phoenix. Then, reluctantly, she drew her head back. "Go," she said.

_Already?_ She bit down on the word. Phoenix might've been Raven's better half—her much, _much _better half—but they were still bonded. And lately, whenever the dragon was with her, it meant that she wasn't with her rider. Yang couldn't, _didn't,_ need her.

But instead of leaving, the dragon lingered and said, "Com."

"No." Yang folded her arms. She knew _why _Phoenix had done it, but she was still a little irritated about the last time she'd forced her and Raven to talk.

Phoenix winced. "Nno. Com. Rae talk... all."

"All—_oh."_ Yang grinned apologetically. "You mean she's making an announcement?"

A nod. "Ssin."

_"Finally."_ Fang roared agreement and tugged at her sleeve. "Hey, quit it! I'm going, you don't have to ruin my shirt."

Yang was one of the last to gather in the center of camp. Phoenix slunk around to her usual spot behind her rider, her ears flicking in chagrin when Raven raised an eyebrow at her.

"I'm sure you've all guessed what this is about, so I'll be brief. We've finally gotten the green light from Cinder and her people—it's time to make our move on Shade.

"Pack your things. We move out in the morning."

* * *

"May."

She looked up from her essay to see Nolan brandishing a finger at her. "What?"

"We're going out. As a team."

"No." She very pointedly went back to writing.

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes!"

"Nolan," Brawnz drawled, "let me do it." He sat next to May and put a hand on her shoulder. She tensed. "You... need to get the hell out of this room. It's been almost a week, May."

She shrugged him off. "I don't want to."

"You mean you think there's a ninja hit squad hunting you," Nolan said.

Brawnz aimed a kick at him. "Dude, shut up and stop helping!"

"Someone was _following _me, I told you!"

"There was no one _there!"_ Nolan groaned in frustration, putting a palm to his forehead. "Literally _no one._ The one time in a whole month we get to hang out in town and you made us go back early because you were scared of your own shadow!"

"What he's trying to say," said Brawnz, "is that you've been a bit of a paranoid wreck lately."

May shoved him off her bed. "Go without me, then!"

"Maybe we will," Nolan snapped. "Bathroom's mine first." He slammed the door behind him.

"Whatever." Brawnz opened the door to their dorm room and paused. "I've got to talk to Kieran. When I get back, we're going."

May gritted her teeth and glared at her paper. She felt the mattress next to her depress slightly, and winced. Maybe if she didn't look at him, he wouldn't say anything.

"May?"

"I'm not going." She still didn't glance up from her essay.

"You don't have to, but... have you gone outside at all since last week?"

"I've gone to class."

Roy didn't say anything. May had basically made his point for him.

"There was _someone _following me."

"...What happened at Beacon really got to you, huh?"

Her head snapped around. "I don't—"

"I'm worried too, but hiding away like this isn't healthy."

"You don't believe me either."

"I believe you thought you saw something." May glared at him. "Look... if it _is _a stalker or something, you'll have all three of us with you." He paused. "Besides, don't you have a gun?"

"What—I can't just carry that around in town! And besides, it's..." A sniper rifle. Awful for close range. "...It's not that great for self defense anyway."

Roy shrugged. "So we'll bring pepper spray."

May couldn't really argue with that. Or rather, she didn't dare. How was she supposed to insist that someone was following her without explaining why they'd have a _motive?_ So she followed the three boys onto the bus and sat there, her hands clenched tight in her lap, jumping at every sound. One of the other passengers kept sneaking glances at her—but then when she was caught, she blushed and smiled a little, and May relaxed. Until she wondered if that was the sort of thing an assassin might do to deflect suspicion...

Nolan and Brawnz kept shooting irritated glances her way. Roy sat in the aisle seat next to her when she asked, and kept an eye out for suspicious characters, and even tried to hide the obvious fact that he was only humoring her.

All went relatively well at first. They got into Vacuo proper and wandered around, and Nolan and Roy each picked up a few bags on the way. Brawnz offered her a chocolate covered scorpion. After a full minute of explaining to him why that was absolutely disgusting she gave in and tried it, and pretended to gag and retch despite the fact that it wasn't all that bad.

Then she glanced to the left and froze. A flash of purple fabric, disappearing around a corner. Brawnz snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Hey! You okay?"

"Fine." The scorpion dropped to the ground, forgotten.

May tried to laugh along with the others, but there were so many people around. Every time one of them jostled her, she tried to get a look at their face—was this the one that kept following her? She stayed between Roy and Nolan, with Brawnz in front of her, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds.

Another flash of purple. It was buried somewhere in the crowd, and even when she stared after it, she couldn't find it again. Could never get a good enough look. Her head spun. There were a thousand eyes all around her, boring into her, they could _see _what she'd—

Her shoulder hit something solid, which turned out to be Nolan. He reached out to steady her. "May? What's wrong?"

"I'm going back." She pulled her beanie further over her hair, wishing it could hide her face. "This was a bad idea."

"Did you see something again?" Nolan asked. "May, seriously, it's _okay._ There's nobody out there."

"Can we please just go back to Shade? I... I need to see Flurry."

Nolan and Brawnz looked at one another. Brawnz made a frustrated noise and pressed a hand to his forehead. "We're only like a mile from the bus stop May, can't you just—?"

When Nolan saw the look on her face he groaned and said, "Fine, but can you at least stick it out for another hour? There's some stuff I really need to buy."

"I'll go," Roy offered. "I don't need anything right now. We'll meet you back at the dorm."

May tensed. Wandering around with only one teammate was better than being alone, but not by all that much. But what were her options, really? She couldn't handle another hour of this. "Fine," she mumbled.

The way back was worse. So many noises jumped out of the crowd—vendors hawking their merchandise, haggling, an argument almost a hundred feet away that almost came to blows. May's head kept jerking back and forth, bird-like, her hand in her pocket clutching the canister of pepper spray. Roy might have been joking about that, but she'd brought it anyway.

"I'll watch the left," Roy said. "At least until we're on the bus."

For several minutes she kept glancing at him, making sure he was really watching and not just saying that so she'd calm down a little. But he kept his eyes moving, and slowly she let herself turn most of her attention to her right side.

Most... but not enough that she didn't notice the flash of purple encroaching on them. But by the time she caught the figure approaching, they were only feet away. A cane tapped against the ground, and it was hunched over with age. The violet cloak over its head came all the way down to its ankles.

May shrieked and shoved Roy hard to one side. He tripped and hit the ground, and she went stumbling backwards. And, in the space where she'd just been, the tip of a gigantic scorpion's tail struck thin air.

People pressed in all around. More potential assassins. The figure poised itself to attack again, and in her panic May shot the pepper spray blindly under the hood. It screamed, reeling back. The tail whipped around behind it to catch its balance. A circle of onlookers formed around them. It dove into the crowd, tail disappearing without a trace under the cloak. Seconds later, it was gone.

Eyes. Hundreds of eyes, all staring at them. The figure had run off to the east. May went in the opposite direction, shoving her way between onlookers. More footsteps pounded along behind her. Blind panic drove her to duck down side-streets at random, desperate to lose her pursuer.

"May!"

She skidded to a stop. Behind her, Roy leaned against a lamppost, panting. "Minute to... breathe... please..."

"No." She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him behind her, watching everyone around her with wild eyes.

"May... what the _hell?"_

"I told you! I told you, and you didn't believe me!"

"But—what the fuck? Why?!"

On impulse, she pulled him to the side, into a narrow alleyway. "I... I..." She chanced a look at his face, feeling strangely steadied by the panic in it. "I killed Ozpin!" she blurted, and looked around again. No one there.

Roy stared at her. His mouth fell slightly open, and he made a strange croaking sound. "You... what?"

"I didn't—" She hugged both arms around her stomach. "I didn't want to! Someone called me, they knew about—about Flurry, and my rifle, and I—he would have gone to the pits, I couldn't just—"

Shock turned to horror. "You're serious."

"You think I'd _joke_ about that? I heard... I heard Ragnar, when he..." Her voice broke. "I can't... I didn't have a choice, I _swear!"_

Roy drew her into a hug, her forehead resting on his chest. "Okay," he said shakily. "Okay... I believe you. I know you wouldn't want to."

"I think... whoever it was that called me, I think they're trying to tie up loose ends."

"So the scorpion faunus... shit." He took few deep breaths. She could feel his chest rising and falling. "Okay. First thing's first, we need to get back to Shade. Whoever it was, they never tried to follow you there. Then... if you have to go out, we'll make sure all four of us are together—"

May pulled away from him. "You can't tell them!"

"I wasn't going to—"

"You _can't!_ Nolan's been trying to prove the council didn't do it for ages, he'd never keep it secret. And Brawnz would... he'd..."

"May." Hands on her shoulders. "I'm not going to tell anyone. Ever. Okay?"

"Okay..."

"But... are you sure? That the council wasn't behind it?"

She nodded. "Yeah. They have their own snipers, why would they need me?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But it doesn't matter right now. What matters is that we're going back on that bus, and we're getting to Shade. Then we don't leave again unless we've got all four of us, _and _our dragons. Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay."

"Good." He tugged on her beanie to straighten it. "And... May? It's not your fault."

He was so earnest, she could almost believe him.


	34. Keys and Cages

**Hello again, and welcome to Shade's fighting pits...**

* * *

**34\. Keys and Cages**

* * *

Two hooded figures wound through the alleyways of Vacuo. It was nearly four in the morning, and both kept their heads low, their faces hidden in shadow. There were places where this sort of behavior would have been suspicious—but nearby a Vacuan fighting pit was not one of them. They weren't even the shadiest characters on the street.

"This is _insane."_

Weiss leaned her head close to Blake's to whisper, and kept her voice so low even she could barely hear it.

"You said that already," Blake murmured back.

"It bears repeating!"

Blake grabbed her hand and turned them down another winding alley—this one even more dark and deserted than usual. "What they're doing here is cruel, and it has to stop."

"I know _that,"_ she snapped.

"And I'm not a huge fan of this plan either, but it's a little late for that now."

In Weiss' defense, she'd_ tried_ to argue when Raven had explained it. Had sort of exploded, in fact.

"That's _idiotic! _Pit dragons aren't socialized properly, and that means they'll lash out. We're, what, just hoping that they'll distinguish between friend and foe?" Weiss would be worried about an army of dragons like Glacier—and even if her father had handled his care poorly, he'd still had a much better home than a pit dragon.

"They're just as intelligent as any other dragon," Raven said, annoyed. "They'll know that we set them free."

"That's a yes, then."

Vernal rolled her eyes. "We don't need them _tamed. _We just have to point them at Shade."

"But—"

"Enough." Raven got to her feet. "We'll move tonight. If you want to back out, be gone by then."

And that was that. End of discussion.

"They'll kill people," Weiss whispered, as they approached the massive warehouse that was their destination. "Wasn't that what you left the White Fang to _avoid?"_

"Weiss, I'm not _arguing _with you." Blake's voice was pained. "I don't like this either, but Cinder and Raven are convinced it's the only way we can take Shade. It's going to happen no matter what we do, so our options are to back out, which means that they might fail and all the pit dragons could _die, _or to go ahead and try to mitigate the damage."

They were both silent for a moment, right up until they were standing in front of the side entrance. It was smaller than the main one, meant to accommodate humans and faunus, not dragons.

"I'm sorry," Weiss muttered. In retrospect, mentioning the White Fang had been a low blow.

Blake fiddled with the lock for a few seconds. It clicked open.

"Don't be. You're right."

* * *

The smell hit Ruby the second Emerald opened the door—the metallic stench of blood, and under it smoke and sweat and stale beer. She reached out instinctively and grabbed Yang's arm, trying to ignore the surge of nausea.

"You okay?" Yang asked, giving her hair a ruffle.

"Yeah... yeah, I'm fine." As horrible as it was, it helped ease her doubts. Whatever else happened, this building would be empty by the time they were done.

They slipped inside. The main room was massive, dark, and as far as Ruby could tell, deserted. "Where are all the guards?" she whispered.

Emerald shrugged. "Where the money is, probably. There's nothing valuable in here, and..." She paused, frowning. "Pits like this are still technically illegal in Vacuo. There's just no law against sending a dragon to one. It's complicated, and what _basically _ends up happening is that the police ignore them as long as they don't draw tons of attention to themselves."

Yang raised her hand and grinned. "Like losing all their dragons at once?"

"Exactly." Emerald gestured to the empty room. "I'm guessing having the main room empty like this gives the cops plausible deniability. You know, they just say that they saw an abandoned warehouse, not a fighting pit, and leave."

Ruby made a face. Visually that was true—the only sign of where the fighting cage normally stood was a square of tape on the floor, and in the dark she could barely make out the bar. But _no one _could mistake that smell.

"Let's hurry up and get out of here," she suggested. "That's where the offices and stuff are, right?" She pointed to a door on the right.

"Yeah." Emerald glanced at Yang, then Ruby. "I can sneak in and grab them."

"But—" Ruby started, but Emerald cut her off.

"More people always makes it harder to sneak around. I'll shout if I really need help, but this will go better if we don't have to deal with security at all."

"Um..." Ruby glanced towards another door, the one that had been marked as containing the pit dragons on the maps Raven had given them. "I have a feeling they're gonna be really loud."

"Okay," Yang said slowly, "so Emerald goes in, grabs the keys. Then I'll keep this door shut as long as I can while Ruby calms the dragons down."

Emerald nodded once, then slipped past the door. Ruby stood there, shifting from foot to foot until Yang gently grabbed her by the shoulders and halted the motion. "She'll be okay."

Ruby groaned quietly. "I'm not dumb Yang, I can tell you and Emerald are doing all the most dangerous stuff."

Yang stared at her a moment. "Uh... Ruby, you realize these dragons are... definitely not fond of people, right?"

"Well, yeah—"

"And that your job would be _way_ more dangerous for me than holding a door shut." Yang shrugged. "I think we split it up pretty well. We're all doing what we're good at."

"I _guess,_ but..." She glanced at the door. "Waiting sucks."

"Agreed."

Mercifully, Emerald was back within minutes, smirking as she dangled a set of keys off her index finger. Then she tossed them to Ruby and started fiddling with the door to the dragons' cages. She turned the knob—and cried out as it slammed outward, smashing into her nose.

A tall man in a guard's uniform stood on the other side, a baton in one hand. "I know you kids like to go on dares," he said, "but you need to get the fuck—"

Yang punched him. There was a brief scuffle, but he obviously hadn't been expecting them to fight back, and before long she grabbed the baton away from him and shoved him out of the room. Then Ruby and Emerald rushed inside, and Yang leaned her back against the door to hold it shut.

"Are you okay?!"

Emerald winced and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine," she said, her voice nasally. "Not the first time I've... broken..." She trailed off. Stopped breathing. Froze, staring at something over Ruby's shoulder.

When she turned around, she was almost nose to nose with a dragon. It had stuck its head through the bars of its cage, stretching its neck out all the way to stare at her. Its fiery blue scales faded to a brilliant gold at the tip of its snout and its curved horns, and its yellow eyes blinked warily at her. There was a leather muzzle clamping its mouth shut.

"Um... hi!" It reared back, startled. "Sorry! I'm here to help, promise."

Every eye in the room was on them now. An orange wind dragon bumped its nose against the bars. It thrashed its tail—which ended in a stump after only about six feet—and let out a long, threatening growl. Beside it was a murky green water dragon that raked its claws against the ground.

Yang may have been right about this being the tricky part. "Easy," Ruby said, focusing her attention on the fire dragon that had greeted her, for now. It sniffed her warily as she offered her hand, then drew back into its cage.

The others were less than impressed. The water dragon threw itself at Ruby. It hit the cage and bounced off, causing a harsh clang that made one of the younger dragons whine and clamp its paws over its ears. The wind dragon hissed through its muzzle, its single intact ear pinned back against its skull.

"Okay..." Ruby backed up a few paces. "So that's not working."

"Ruby?"

"Gimme a sec, Yang, I'm thinking." There was a set of metal shutters on the other side of the room, blocking the opening the dragons would walk through at the start of a fight, and it was held shut with a padlock. "Um, Emerald? Can you—?"

"On it."

"Cool." Ruby drew herself up and met each dragon's eyes in turn. "I don't really have a lot of time, so here's what's gonna happen. You guys are going to calm down, and as soon as you do I'll let you out."

Most of them ignored that—but the first fire dragon went on watching her with its head tilted quizzically. She took a deep breath and, before she could second-guess herself, unlocked the cage. Then she backed up and sat cross-legged on the ground, both her palms flat against the floor. It took a moment for it to move. When it did, and the cage door creaked open... every other dragon went dead silent. It approached her, sniffing.

"Mind if I take the muzzle off?"

It stared blankly at her.

Slowly, watching carefully for any sign of distress, she touched one of the buckles. "Is this okay?"

Still no response, but it hadn't tensed up, so she went ahead and got rid of it. As soon as it was free the dragon drew its head back, its mouth opening... and licked her face. She giggled. "You're welcome."

When Ruby looked up, Yang was staring at her. Emerald was staring at her. Every single one of the pit dragons was staring at her. "So," she said cheerfully, "now that I've got your attention, who wants me to take off their muzzle?"

She made the rounds, carefully removing each muzzle. A few dragons snapped at her as soon as their jaws were free. Most stopped short of actually biting her, but the orange wind dragon left a long scratch on the back of her hand... and the water dragon clamped its jaws down on her arm. Ruby yelped, Yang swore at the top of her lungs, and Emerald surged forward—but when it let go, there wasn't a mark on her. Its mouth was still slightly open as it growled, revealing nothing but pink gums. No teeth at all.

"Hey! No more of that."

It flinched back into the cage, bracing for a blow. Ruby struggled to keep up her stern expression as long as she could, then let it melt into a smile. "We good?"

She decided to take its baffled stare as a yes.

"Okay!" Ruby backed up to address all the dragons. "You're all leaving tonight—"

_Pandemonium._ She hadn't _quite _realized that, without the muzzles, every single dragon in the room would start roaring and howling all at once. Wincing a little, Ruby waited. And waited. Finally the din died down a little—enough so that she could hear that someone was banging on the door as Yang held it shut.

"And we _really _need to speed this up, so—some friends and I are about to do something really dangerous. We're going to Shade, and we're going to get as many riders as we can to join us... because we're standing up to the council."

The orange wind dragon perked up, though its eyes were still narrowed suspiciously. Others glanced at each other, growling and grumbling quietly to one another.

"I'm gonna let you guys out whether you decide to help or not. If you want, you can just fly away. Or... you can come with us."

Ruby stood there for a moment, her palms sweating, wondering if she'd just screwed up the plan. But she couldn't _make _them attack Shade. After everything they'd been through, they at least deserved to have the choice. And if that meant that none of them helped—

A low hiss, just to her left. The orange wind dragon flared its wings and said, "Ffight." Others were flexing their claws and baring their teeth. The first fire dragon just kept staring guilelessly at her.

The guards outside grew more insistent. Yang skidded a few inches across the floor. She held the door, barely, but at least three voices were shouting at them. "Right! Emerald?"

There was a little click. "Got it."

Ruby raced around the room, yanking open cage doors. Then Emerald threw the shutters wide, and there were security guards running in with batons and a _gun—_

The orange wind dragon burst out of its cage, bellowed a challenge, and charged through the opening. Four guards went down like bowling pins. Its wings flexed, and its head swiveled around until it spotted the exit. More poured out after it—all but the fire dragon, which stood next to Ruby and chirped inquisitively.

"Wow." She stared at the empty cages. Some of their doors were still swinging on their hinges. "That's, um... wow."

"We should go." Emerald pointed at one of the guards, who was starting to stir. "Hopefully the others are almost done."

* * *

"I am _so fucking done."_

Neptune grabbed Sun's shoulder. "Uh, dude... maybe don't yell."

"What?"

"I _said—_ah, never mind."

He and Sun stood before a row of cages... all full of dragons that were going absolutely _berserk._ Growling and hissing and banging their tails against the bars until neither of the two boys could hear themselves _think... _but it could have been worse.

Two crimson eyes glared balefully at them through a haze of smoke. Twin black horns curled up behind the dragon's head, and its blood red scales shimmered with heat. Its cage was half again the size of most of the others, but it still had to hunch its shoulders just to fit. A set of wheels were fixed to the bottom—as if the creeps running this place couldn't control it even for the few seconds it would take to get it into the arena.

So yeah, it could have been worse—because if the pit dragons hadn't been muzzled, Neptune was pretty sure both of them would've been burned to a crisp the moment they opened the door.

"Look!" Sun shouted, in an attempt to be heard over the racket. "This is a rescue mission! But you're gonna have to chill for a minute before we let you out, because I don't wanna get charbroiled. Got it?" He jabbed a finger at the fire dragon, and it lurched forward. Its skull smacked against the cage, but one of its horns slipped between the bars and opened a long scratch in his forearm. "Gah!"

"Sun!" Neptune hauled him back. "Hang on, let me—!" He fumbled for something to tie around it, but Sun waved him off.

"It's okay, it's not that deep."

"Do you not _see _your arm covered in blood?!"

"Listen up, you jerk!" Sun eyed the dragon that had scratched him, but before he could finish the thought it huffed out a great, scorching puff of smoke. Both of them stumbled back, gagging and coughing.

"Screw this!" Neptune grabbed Sun by the shoulders and held him still. "You deal with your cut. I'm getting Nymph."

"But—"

"And don't go near that thing again!"

He stomped out past the single guard that was slumped against the wall, unconscious. The pit they were at was pretty small, and only had the one dedicated security guard. Apparently a lot of these places relied on the fact that anyone trying to steal their most valuable merchandise would get mauled. Which was good, because if there had been anyone else in the building they _definitely _would have heard the giant hellbeast thrashing in its cage.

Nymph and Huo were holed up in a warehouse a few streets away, where Sun and Neptune had stashed them that morning. The dragons were too conspicuous to bring right up to the doors of a fighting pit, and it was only about a minute's run away from the pit.

Two minutes later, Neptune glanced from side to side and ushered Nymph, then Huo, through the giant metal doors. He'd tried to bring just Nymph, but Huo had refused to sit around in the warehouse by himself. And, well... it wasn't like two dragons were all that much more obvious than one.

"Okay, girl." He ushered her into the room full of cages. "Can you help us convince them we're trying to help?"

Nymph tossed her head and walked in. Sun was still standing in the middle of the room, though he'd taken off his shirt and wrapped it around his bleeding arm. "Uh... dude?" He pointed to Nymph, then at Huo, who had poked his head inside. "You sure no one saw them?"

"Yeah."

The lights cut out. Red flashes lit up the room, and a horrible blaring noise started up.

"...No."

* * *

"It's fine," Jaune said, in the universal tone of people who definitely aren't fine. "We just gotta... um... give them a minute."

He could barely hear himself over the thrashing pit dragons. One shiny black earth dragon smacked its tail on the floor and growled through its muzzle. Another, a cloudy grey wind dragon, shoved its head through the bars and hissed. The only one that seemed the least bit interested in what he had to say was an orange fire dragon near the back. A long golden stripe ran from the tip of its nose to the back of its neck. Its head tilted quizzically to one side, and its wide eyes were fixed on him like he'd just performed some kind of miracle. If he managed to get the rest to be quiet for a second, he might start agreeing with it.

Pyrrha grimaced. "This... isn't working. Maybe we can try talking to some of them individually?"

So they did. Jaune tried to pick out the ones that didn't seem hostile—starting with the fire dragon with the crown. It looked younger than most of the others, and he noticed when it flexed its forepaws that it was missing its claws. "So... do you want to get out of here?" It shrank back into its cage.

His next attempt was with a water dragon. Its scales were a blue so dark it looked almost black, streaked with thin white stripes. It looked wary, but at least it wasn't howling through its muzzle. "Hey! We're trying to get you guys out of these cages, okay?" A low, dangerous hiss.

In the distance, Jaune heard the blaring of an alarm. The noise riled many of the pit dragons into an even bigger frenzy, lashing out at the bars of their cages and thumping their tails on the ground. "Well," he said, returning to the middle of the room. He couldn't even hear his own voice. "This is gonna take a while—"

Somewhere outside, he heard sirens. A _lot _of sirens. Most seemed to be moving away, but some of them... definitely weren't. He hung his head and sighed. "Why do I even—?"

Pyrrha leaned into his side so that she could shout into his ear. "We need a dragon!"

"Yeah!"

"I'll get Twiggy."

"But—!"

"Try to talk them down if you can!"

She was already leaving. Jaune took a few steps towards the door, then stopped. If the police were on their way, they needed to finish this _now._

"Alright, listen up! We're going to—hey!" The black earth dragon slammed its head against the bars, drowning him out mid-sentence. "Look, I'm—I'm here to—" Frustrated, he cupped both hands around his mouth and shouted, "I'm here to free you!"

For a second, the racket stopped. Then the grey wind dragon hissed and raised its head, its head fins flared and its eyes narrowed.

"I'll prove it! You want that muzzle off?"

He started forward, reached out a hand—and all of a sudden it was clinging to the roof of its cage like a bat and snarling.

"...Okay, um..." He approached the fire dragon. "Maybe you'll let me try?" It stuck out its head when he reached for it, butting against the bars. But when he reached for the muzzle it pulled back and shook its head, its whole body trembling.

Jaune groaned. "What's wrong? Do you guys _want _to stay here?"

At that, the dark blue water dragon drew itself up and growled indignantly.

"Good! So let me _help!_"

But they still weren't having it. He paced around, talking softly like he would with Twiggy, but he just couldn't get any of them to _listen _to him. The sirens were getting closer—until suddenly they were right outside... and a gunshot went off. Jaune sprinted full-tilt towards the door, burst through, and almost tripped over a long brown tail.

"Call off the beast!" A deep voice shouted from behind a parked police car.

Jaune turned around, and found Twiggy curled up in a ball, her teeth bared. Then she saw Jaune and barked once.

"Come on!" He bolted for the door, holding it open long enough for the dragon to duck inside. He heard another gunshot, but it only hit the wall of the warehouse. "Pyrrha! Where's—"

Twiggy barked again, lifting a wing to show an unharmed Pyrrha wrapped up in her forepaws. "Oh. Um. Nice work." Jaune rubbed his hands together. "Think you can calm them down, girl?"

He had no idea what she said, but it seemed to help. A little. Enough that the black earth dragon let Pyrrha get close enough to loosen its muzzle. Then it tossed its head, sending the scrap of leather to the floor, and roared. Jaune and Pyrrha made a circuit, removing the muzzles of any dragon that would let them. A few adamantly refused, including the friendly fire dragon. After that, they started unlocking cages.

Just in time, too. He heard Pepper calling overhead—meaning she and their professors had already finished up at their pit. Twin metal grates that blocked the room they were in from the street rolled open, and dragons surged past them. Many took off then and there, while others sprinted up to the side of a building and began clawing their way up its face, to give themselves a better takeoff point.

And the flock in the air... seemed to be moving in the opposite direction from Shade. About half had taken off so far, and none looked like they were in any mood to stay behind. Even the friendly-looking fire dragon was fleeing, following right on the tail of the dark blue water dragon.

The black earth dragon soared overhead, trumpeting its triumph—then banked hard to the left, circling around. Pepper had already landed, but she stood up onto her hind legs and called out to it.

Professor Port's mouth dropped open. Goodwitch stood halfway up in the saddle behind him and shouted, "Tar!"

It landed beside Pepper, sniffing at her and barking excitedly. "Um... what's going on?" Jaune asked, as he clambered onto Twiggy's back.

Port reached his hand out. Tar pressed its nose against it and snorted. Then it reared back and roared at the sky. There was no reaction from most of the pit dragons, but a few of them circled back—including the grey wind dragon and the dark blue water dragon, with the crowned fire dragon following reluctantly behind it.

Professor Goodwitch answered his question. "She's a Beacon dragon."

Jaune paused with one foot in the stirrups. "But—if she's from Beacon, how did she end up here?"

"That is a very good question, Mister Arc." Professor Goodwitch's eyes flashed dangerously. "Let's go and find someone to ask, shall we?"

* * *

**Wow that was a lot of pit dragons.**


	35. Storming the Castle

**Hello again!**

* * *

**35\. Storming the Castle**

* * *

Tank shifted from paw to paw, casting a few anxious glances at his sister. They waited together in an alleyway, hidden behind a massive dumpster—not the nicest place to be, and the way she kept growling only made it worse. He couldn't help flinching.

"Quit it," she snarled.

"You quit it," Tank grumbled back. "It's not going to make this happen any faster."

She snapped her teeth at him. "Ugh. I'm so _bored."_

A scream in the distance. Tank's head picked up, and he and Barracuda charged over the dumpster and towards where their riders were. Russel and Dove met them halfway, sprinting down the street, Russel yelling at the top of his lungs. And behind them...

Pit dragons shrieked and tore through the air, looping through the streets before soaring up and over Vacuo. Some of them dive-bombed the humans, swooping down and making Dove throw himself to the ground with his hands over his head. Tank jumped at the dragon that had done it, but it rose up and out of the way.

"Fuck Vernal!" Russel clawed his way into Barracuda's saddle. "We just have to point them, my ass! How the hell were we supposed to point _that?!"_

A marbled pink earth dragon flew at the building they had just vacated, bellowing in triumph as she tore into it with both of her claws. Another, this one brick red, clung to the side of a nearby building, his wings flared. Most were already in the air... and they weren't heading towards Shade.

"Hey!" Barracuda roared at the dragons overhead. "Don't you want to get back at the people that did this?"

Most of them ignored him, but a few dragons—including the brick red earth dragon that was still clinging to the wall—picked up their heads to listen. The pink one that had been tearing apart the building ignored them completely, until one of the others whacked her with his tail. Then she turned, blinking at them in mild confusion.

"We're going to attack Shade," Barracuda hissed.

"But..." The red dragon cocked his head to one side. "Shade is home."

Barracuda bared her teeth. "They're the ones that sent you here, birdbrain!"

"It's not about hurting anyone," Tank said quickly. "We want to make them stop sending dragonets to places like this."

"They should stop." The pink dragon took another swipe at the roof she was sitting on, sending several cinderblocks tumbling to the street below. "Riders are at Shade. I will go."

She took flight. Tank and Barracuda scrambled to follow, as did the red earth dragon and a few others. As they came closer to Shade, more joined the growing flock. Some were young—Tank spotted a blue and yellow fire dragon that was probably the same age as he was. Others, like a dusty brown earth dragon with a missing foreleg, looked like they could easily be older than Pepper.

His yearmates were there, too. Mudslide roared a challenge as she flew wingtip to wingtip with Twiggy, who had finally managed to take off with her rider. Pepper joined the cry, and it spread like wildfire through the night sky until even the pit dragons picked it up. Tank shrieked at the top of his lungs, Barracuda's voice ringing in his ears.

That was when the first riders took off. It was hard to see them—Shade was still blanketed in darkness, though lights were starting to flicker on near some of the larger pathways. Then they were closer, and Tank's ears pinned back. A wind dragon loomed up out of the dark, her rider crouched low over her back, and screeched in defiance.

She collided with the enormous tan earth dragon, and the two of them spiraled towards the ground, snapping at one another. Tank faltered. Then another surged up and into the fray, and another and another, and there was a water dragon roaring in his face. He banked hard to the right, and felt her teeth sink into his foreleg.

They fell. He rolled over in the air, struggling against her grip, and came face to face with her rider. He was older, a second year student at _least, _and his face contorted with rage. "Not here! Not here, you bastards!"

Tank tore himself free, but he was upside-down in the air now, his wings forced closed by the wind blowing past him as he fell. And then there were teeth again, this time on his tail. He howled and struggled, but then he could feel himself being dragged, twisted around... and he could finally get his wings open.

Barracuda let go of him, flapping frantically to slow her own dive. Tank barked his thanks—and felt another dragon smash into his side. His sister screeched at the new attacker, and then all three of them tangled together and smashed into a tree.

The next thing Tank knew he was on his side in the grass, groaning quietly. His head twisted around behind him, where he found his rider—stunned, but unharmed. Barracuda struggled to her feet.

The fire dragon that had attacked them narrowed his eyes and hissed. There was a heavy thump as Mudslide landed directly behind him. His head turned, very slowly, to look from Tank, to Barracuda, to Mudslide. His tail twitched nervously.

"Get him!" Barracuda snarled.

* * *

Specter circled high above Shade. Everywhere he looked were airborne tangles of wings and tails, dragons grappling each other or darting between buildings. He turned towards a gout of fire and recognized Phoenix. There were three other dragons surrounding her, and two of their riders held whips. Shoulder-first, he slammed into the last dragon. Her rider didn't have a saddle, and she slid off her back and into open air. He caught her under the shoulders, skimming over the lawn so that he could safely drop her.

"Good boy, Specter!" Weiss shouted, leaning forward so he could hear her over the wind.

He preened. But when he turned around again, Phoenix had already knocked one of the two council dragons through a wall, and most of the area around them was on fire. He gained altitude, looking for another scuffle where he could actually tell who was who, he passed much too close to a muddy green pit dragon and barely dodged a vicious swipe of his claws.

"Sorry!" he yelped, and kept flying. It turned out keeping his distance was a good lesson to learn—one fire dragon in particular almost took off the last couple feet of his tail.

Then, as he was looping around for another pass, a brick red earth dragon slammed into him. "Hey!" he squawked, indignant. "I'm on your side!"

"Sorry!"

Specter veered to the left, scanning the ground below, until he heard another shriek from the pit dragon. "Look out!" He whirled and came almost nose to nose with a massive water dragon. Rolling in the air to keep himself between her and Weiss, he swiped at her face with his claws.

"You will not take this academy!" the man in her saddle roared at the top of his lungs. He had no whip—not a council rider. Which meant...

"Is that a professor?!" Weiss' hands tightened on the reins.

Specter let out a small, "Eep!" and folded his wings. He streaked towards the ground, then whipped them open again and darted between two buildings. Fighting an older student was one thing, but there was no _way _he'd win a fight with someone as experienced (and _big)_ as Nautilus.

"Left!" Weiss shouted in his ear. "Go left! I think I saw Storm!"

Specter followed her directions, tucking his wings in and diving under a decorative archway. His heart sank, and Weiss swore over the wind. The dragon did look a little like Storm, but she was a much darker grey, and there was no rider. She noticed their approach, though, and when she wheeled around to look she hissed and bared her teeth at the professor.

The older dragon smashed into the side of a building, digging in with her claws and staring at the wind dragon. "Kite?"

She howled in outrage and dove at her teacher's face. Alarmed, Specter dropped down to try and help. "Tail whip!" Weiss suggested, and he passed just over the brawl so that he could smack the older dragon's shoulder.

"Stop it!" she roared. "I don't want to hurt you!"

Another angry roar—not the wind dragon, Kite, this time. Instead it was the earth dragon who had just run into Specter, who dropped out of the sky with his wings folded and didn't even try to slow his fall before he collided with the professor's dragon. All three of them started to fall. Specter darted down and grabbed the earth dragon's tail in his talons, flapping hard to slow his fall, while Kite frantically tried to right herself.

They collided with the ground together and ended up in a tangled heap, with the much bigger water dragon baring her teeth. Her growl rumbled low, her eyes narrowed, and her rider shouted a command to attack. The moment froze. Stretched. Then her hackles lowered, and she let out a low whine. She took off without another word, her rider's angry shouts echoing in her wake.

Kite started to run after her.

"Wait!" The earth dragon pounced on her, knocking her into a wall. Specter tensed, prepared to break up a fight, but his tail started to wag. "Kite! It's me!"

She hissed at him. "I _know, _Brick, it's only been a month. Look, we have to—"

He whined, blinking blue eyes at her while his ears drooped and his shoulders fell into an exaggerated slump. She huffed, then licked him once and went charging off after the professor. Brick loped after her and, not really knowing what else to do, Specter followed.

"Is that...?"

"My sister!"

Brick pulled ahead a little, his tail still wagging as he ran. Specter stalled for a moment, slightly stunned. Then he let out a high, keening battle cry—with the words _only been a month _still ringing in his ears.

* * *

"It's happening!"

May snapped awake at Nolan's shout. She thrashed at her sheets, looking for the assassin—but the room was empty. She could hear dragons outside.

"We've gotta go help!" Nolan struggled with one of his boots, muttering curses under his breath. "They're attacking—dammit!—the school!"

"And who the fuck are you planning on helping, exactly?" Brawnz demanded. May rubbed sleep from her eyes, her mind still working much too slowly. "The bastards desperate to keep sending any dragon with a bad enough case of the sniffles to the fighting pits?"

"You want them to destroy the school?!"

Roy fumbled with the blinds, and whatever he saw through them made him grimace. "There's more dragons out there than there should be. And a lot of them don't have riders."

May joined him there, jamming her beanie on with one hand as she squinted at the sky. He was right about the riders—but beyond that it was impossible make out much of the fight when it was happening so quickly in the dark, against a black sky.

Nolan and Brawnz hadn't been listening. "I knew you were a slimeball, but I never thought you'd be on _their _side. What if Pride had been born with a problem?"

"I'd get another one!" Nolan gestured wildly with both hands. "We've got to trust our partners with our _lives, _is it that crazy I wanted a healthy dragon? Would you seriously want to fight Grimm with him if Clay was born without claws or someth—"

Brawnz punched him.

Nolan crashed into his desk, scattering papers everywhere. May hesitated. She didn't want to get hit trying to pull them apart. "Guys, stop it!"

They rolled over one another, and one of Brawnz's flailing legs almost kneecapped her. "Come on," Roy said, pulling the door open. "We've got to go."

"But—"

"Someone's after you, and Shade isn't safe anymore."

She shut up and followed, weaving through the flood of students that streamed through the halls. Everyone was moving in the same direction—towards the stables. A few other fights, like the one between Brawnz and Nolan, started up, and traffic slowed to a crawl. Then they were through the open doors, and took off in a sprint towards the wind barns.

"Flurry first," Roy said. "Then Pearl."

Dragons were already poking their heads through barn windows, but the metal shutters over the doors were closed and locked. There were a few exceptions—even as she watched, she saw their earth professor skidding to a stop in front of one of them and punching in the code.

"Don't fight!" she yelled. "Just get the fuck out of here, they're not—"

A jet of water slammed into the ground several feet away, shattering a tree to splinters. The dragon responsible shrieked in outrage and skimmed low over the campus. With its deep blue scales, it looked almost like a shard of starless sky. There was no rider.

"Where did they come from?!" May demanded. She didn't recognize them, which meant... "Those aren't from Shade."

"Oh, _fuck."_ Roy pointed to a plume of smoke that was rising from somewhere in town. "The pits."

May sprinted towards Flurry's barn. She reached it seconds before Professor Bloom did, and tried her best to open a path for the woman so that she could open the door. When she finally did, the press of students met several terrified dragons, and the surge in the crowd almost knocked her off her feet.

Flurry stuck his head up over the press, barking frantically. "Here!" May raised both arms. "I'm over here!"

"I'll get Pearl—"

"I'm going with you!"

"I know."

She slid onto Flurry's back. Then Roy grabbed her arm and let her haul him up behind her, and the dragon took off running towards the water stables without a word from either of them.

"Do you think they'll listen if we tell them we're on their side?" she asked anxiously.

"Let's not find out."

They found Pearl easily. She'd already left her barn and was pacing the grounds, calling, "Rrroy!" He slid onto her back.

"Next stop, tack," May said.

"I'm not going to fly, if that's what you're implying. We're staying with you."

"But—"

"She's healthy. As long as we stay out of the fight, they'll have no reason to arrest either of us."

"You think they're going to be _reasonable?!"_

"Just shut up and go!"

They'd hardly made it a hundred feet before a voice carried across the grounds. "Dragons and students of Shade!"

May craned her neck to try and see, but all she could make out was a large black shape against the sky. She wasn't even totally sure that was where the voice was coming from—it was one dragon in a chaotic, swirling mass of them, the only one that wasn't fighting just yet.

"You have a choice to make." The voice was low, almost sultry, and...

"Oh my god." Flurry stopped, craning his neck to coo at her. "Oh my _god!"_

"What are you doing?" Roy demanded. "We need to keep moving!"

"It was her!" May pointed at the sky. "She's the one who made me—"

"What are you talking about?"

_"The Vytal Festival!_ That's where I'd heard that voice before! Or, not the voice but... it was similar, all mechanical and... and... oh my god!"

"You're not making any sense."

"Think about it!" May pressed her hands together, pleading for him to understand. "There's no reason the council would do it, they would have just arrested him! Who benefited? Who got _dozens _of riders on her side when he—"

Roy looked up, then back at her. She could almost see the wheels in his head turning. "You... you're _sure?"_

"Yes!"

She'd tuned out most of the speech, but as the woman kept talking—"I hope you'll think hard about what to do with that trust..." May _knew_ that oh-so-superior drawl.

Roy grimaced. "All the more reason to get the hell out of here. _Now."_

May opened her mouth in outrage—couldn't he _see _that this was the one who'd almost killed her?! Then she closed it again, remembering the scorpion's tail that had come out of nowhere. A few more inches... "Yeah. Let's go."

But before they could get far, a riderless water dragon came streaking around a corner, howling at the top of its lungs. It skidded to a stop in front of Pearl, its ears back, its eyes wide.

May and Roy glanced at one another. "We should really..." he started, but his heart obviously wasn't in it. They dismounted together, approaching the dragon slowly. It backed up, trembling like a leaf, and a shaft of light from a distant lamp fell across its face, shining on a black leather muzzle. Dolphin grey scales, sea green eyes...

"Riptide..." she murmured. One of Flurry's yearmates.

Roy tried to soothe her, but she just retreated another step. There was a long cut across her nose, fresh against old scars. Not a scratch from another dragon, not with just one...

"Are you looking for Nebula?"

A tiny whimper.

"Did..." May felt sick. "Did she do that?"

Riptide whined and covered her nose with her paws, still shaking.

"Easy," Roy said. "You're alright."

"Hey!"

He and May both turned towards the shout, then stiffened when they saw one of the council riders that had been stationed at Shade after the attack on Beacon. "What do you think you're doing?"

"We were just trying to help her," Roy said quickly, backing up a step. "She's not like the others, she's just scared."

"If you're with them—"

"We're not!" May threw her hands up. "We just want to go, please!"

She lashed her whip against the dragon's side, and it hissed. "Stay put and submit to arrest, _now."_

"We can't! We just want—"

The dragon lunged, its teeth snapping shut just inches from Pearl's throat. Roy vaulted onto her back, and May clambered onto Flurry as he turned and bolted. Riptide was already far ahead of them, blind terror driving her out of sight.

"Go right," Roy shouted. "I'll draw her off."

"But—"

"For the last time, May, I'll be fine if I'm arrested! I haven't done anything!"

"Neither did Riptide!"

"You want to go there? Fine!" He jabbed a finger at her. "Pearl can fucking fly! I can get away, _you _need to run! So _start running!"_

May tried to protest, but then Pearl was clawing her way onto the roof of one of the gyms to take off, and Flurry turned a corner. May urged him through narrow, dark pathways, hoping to escape most of the chaos above. She kept half an eye on the sky, watching as the speck that was Pearl twisted and dived to avoid another... and then they collided, and a much smaller speck flew from her back.

_"Roy!"_

Pearl shrieked and struggled, going down with the other dragon in a confused tangle. May tightened her arms around Flurry's neck, unable to tear her eyes away from the fall... until the speck collided with the horizon. Then she buried her face in his soft blue scales and took several deep, shuddering breaths.

When she mustered the courage to look up, they were already in motion. Flurry tore around a corner... and skidded to a stop, his wings flaring. A water dragon almost collided with him. May didn't recognize it, or its rider—and she would have remembered seeing a dragon like that. Its scales were mottled, the greys and browns of silt and the sticky black of oil, and its blank white eyes bored into her.

"We won't fight," May said quickly. "We're first-years, we don't even know how. Please, we just want to go!"

She didn't like the sudden stiffening of the rider's shoulders. His face was lost in shadow, but the way he was looking at her felt like recognition. He leaned forward and whispered something in the dragon's ear. It crouched low and roared.

Flurry's ears pinned back. The water dragon charged shoulder-checked him with all the grace of a runaway train, barking and batting at him with its paws. There was a brief scuffle, during which Flurry bit its tail, and then its rider whistled and it scampered away.

May slumped against Flurry's neck, panting, her heart beating in her ears. She'd been sure he knew her, that he worked for the woman who'd ordered Ozpin's death and he was going to... but if he'd run off like that, maybe he'd just thought she was lying?

Her only warning was a sudden stench, like sulfur and burn Dust. May twisted around, and saw _red. _Two crimson eyes... two slitted pupils that were longer than her forearm. Scales the color of blood, sweeping into curved, jet-black horns.

Flurry howled in terror and bolted, dodging a blast of fire by a hair. May clung to him, her heart hammering in her chest. The pit dragons didn't know who was on what side... so they were taking their cues from the students. He hadn't been _trying_ to attack her, he'd been marking her as an enemy.

"Wait! Please!"

Teeth clamped shut on Flurry's hind leg and yanked him off his feet. The world spun around May for a moment, until she heard the crack of her head hitting the ground and groaned. Smoke choked her as she tried to breathe. Through her coughing she managed to croak, "Don't!"

Flurry was tossed contemptuously aside. He landed in a crumpled heap, whining softly. Those crimson eyes fixed on her, burning with rage and condemnation. "I'm not—" she found herself babbling, "—I didn't mean to... I'm sorry!"

Dagger teeth opened wide, and the pit dragon _roared._


	36. Wrangling

**Hi again! I've got another chapter, this one featuring Neptune making progress and Pyrrha the MVP.**

* * *

**36\. Wrangling**

* * *

She should be feeling something. Vindicated, maybe, or at least angry. Looking at the chaos below, Pyrrha just felt hollow.

Pepper touched down near the northern end of Shade's campus, landing just long enough for Professor Port to give both Pyrrha and Professor Goodwitch a surprisingly crisp salute. "Good luck, ladies!"

Then he and the dragon were gone, and it was just the two of them standing there, flightless. Without the wind howling in their ears the noise was worse, shouts and roars and screams from dragons and rider's alike. "What... what do we do?"

There was a dark look on her professor's face. "We pick up the pieces. As always." She approached a downed pair, a dragon curled around its rider and cradling one broken wing to its side. A murmur, coaxing it into lifting the other so that Goodwitch could treat the faunus slumped underneath it. Pyrrha couldn't tell whose side they'd been fighting on.

She ran. Not really towards or from anything, just moving in the hope that she'd feel a little less useless if she did. She didn't know how to deal with injuries. Couldn't participate in these fights with only a weak human body. Couldn't fly alone.

A roar jumped out of the noise around her. Maybe because it was closer, louder, or maybe because the rage in it made her heart race. Pyrrha turned a corner, ducking between two buildings, and froze.

One of the pit dragons clung to two buildings, its long neck winding between them, its eyes burning crimson. Patches of asphalt were melted into bubbling slag, and a few charred scraps were all that was left of the grass. A younger wind dragon stood there trembling, its wings flared defiantly despite the fact that one of them looked dislocated. It wasn't even half the size of the fire dragon—probably less than a year old. And slumped against a wall, between her dragon and Pyrrha, was its rider.

She tried to think of what she would have done, if this was a wild dragon she was supposed to wrangle. The only problem was... if she'd found a dragon _that _big and _that _aggressive in the wild, she wouldn't have tangled with it. Ever.

The pit dragon snapped at the smaller one, sinking its teeth into its shoulder. "Flurry!" Its rider reached out, but didn't have the strength to stand. Flurry scratched at the pit dragon's neck. It hardly seemed to notice.

Pyrrha sprinted towards them. She jumped over the pools of melted tar, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead, her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. If she'd been _forced _to wrangle a dragon this size, she would have... would have...

And then there was no time left to think. She jumped while the pit dragon was still wrestling Flurry to the ground, hauling it to the side to get at its rider. Usually she went for the junction of neck and shoulder, where a rider would sit, but the pit dragon was still holding itself above the ground... and she didn't think she'd have been able to reach the spot even if it was lying down. Instead she grabbed one of its clawed forelegs and started to pull herself up.

She was still hanging there when its head turned. Its mouth opened, already billowing heat, glowing on the inside. But Flurry saw her too, and clawed at the pit dragon to keep its attention.

When she finally got her feet under her, Pyrrha reached out and just managed to snag one of the spines on its neck. Her hand didn't even wrap all the way around. Then her legs were swinging in empty air, and it was twisting around like a snake to bite. And as she scrabbled for some scrap of advice, anything from her wrangler training that would help here, she came up blank.

So she let go. As she fell, she saw the dragon's eyes widen slightly. Then she landed directly on its face, grabbing hold of the ridges above its eyes to keep herself from sliding down its nose. Its scales heated up in an instant, and every point of contact—her hands, elbows, knees—lit up with searing pain.

"I'm on your side!" she shouted.

Pyrrha could feel the snarl in the way its scales bunched up. It didn't believe her—of course not. So she squeezed her eyes shut and forced it out. "My dragon, Titan, they... they killed him."

Slowly, the snarl fell away. Its scales cooled slightly. Those scarlet eyes stared into hers, weighing. Judging.

"If you want to make them pay, there's no point going after first years."

It seemed distinctly unimpressed. Honestly, the feeling was mutual. Pyrrha glared at it as sternly as she could, given the fact that she was currently hanging from its brow. "Do you only want to fight dragons that are barely out of the shell?"

Another flash of heat, and an indignant growl.

_"Well?"_

It glowered at her for a few more seconds, before huffing and giving its head a light toss that almost sent Pyrrha flying. She just managed to keep her grip, and when it held still for her afterward she climbed to a slightly better position between its horns. She looked down its long neck. The spines might work decently well as a ladder—

But before she could even think about trying it, the pit dragon was already clawing up the side of a building, its wings spread. Pyrrha had just enough time to seize its horns in a death grip before the ground fell away beneath them. All of a sudden she was flying without a saddle, on a dragon even wilder than the ones she used to wrangle, while the wind ripped away her shout of terror and exhilaration.

* * *

Neptune lost track of Sun almost immediately.

In his defense, he also lost track of everything and everyone else. The only reason he hadn't lost Nymph was because he was strapped to her back. There was a swarm of pit dragons, and all of them were _very _picky about personal space, so he just sort of... held on tight while his partner did her best not to run into any of them. By the time that was over, he could see one of Raven's rogues... and no one else he knew.

There wasn't time to do much about it. Shade's dragons were everywhere, and some of them were fighting the pit dragons and others were trying to help, and a lot of the pit dragons were attacking _both _sides, and—

Neptune spotted Sage and Zircon and steered Nymph their way. "Hey!"

The other two didn't hear. They were circling above a massive lake where Neptune guessed Shade's water dragons took their lessons. All their attention was preoccupied by a smoky grey fire dragon that knocked against Zircon, grappling at him with its claws.

"Come on!" Neptune shouted, but Nymph was already diving.

It was a council rider—she lashed out with her whip, catching poor Zircon across the chest. Sage unbuckled his legs, leaning forward to snatch it away. Neptune yelled a warning. Another dragon swept down on them, this one a water dragon, and he wasn't sure who its rider was trying to help... until it smacked Sage with its tail and he went _flying._

Or, not flying. Falling. Before Neptune could do much of anything, he plowed into the lake, water flying everywhere, and the water dragon followed. Zircon howled, but he was still in the claws of the fire dragon.

Neptune gritted his teeth. "Nymph? Get Zircon."

She obliged, sweeping over the lake. Neptune unbuckled his legs. And... and... he was still very high up. "I hate this!" he screamed, and jumped.

The water was _freezing._ He broke the surface, gasping and swearing at the top of his lungs, almost too cold to move at first. Then he dogpaddled gracelessly towards his teammate.

"Sage!"

"Neptune?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." Sage brushed wet hair out of his face. "I'm very glad this lake is here."

Neptune made a face.

"Listen..." Sage glanced up, towards where Nymph had just slammed into the fire dragon and ripped it away from Zircon. She raked her claws along its side, and it finally retreated, sweeping behind a few buildings to regroup. "I appreciate you coming down here to help me."

"You're welcome?"

"But... this wasn't your whole plan, was it?"

Neptune treaded water. Sage treaded water. An ominous ripple started to circle them.

"In my defense, if I'd thought about it I wouldn't have been able to jump."

"...Right."

A roar overhead announced Pepper's arrival. She dropped like a stone, directly onto the ominous ripple. The two thrashed and clawed at one another. Neptune dunked underwater twice as the massive waves they were generating crashed over him.

"We should—" a wave hit his face, and he spat out a mouthful of water, "—probably go."

* * *

"Pyrrha!"

Twiggy scanned the ground below. She'd only looked away for a second, but then she hadn't been sure where Pepper was, and there had been dragons everywhere, diving at one another in midair. But she must have dropped Pyrrha off _somewhere..._

Jaune stood in the saddle to get a better look. She could feel the way his weight shifted, tried to fly as straight as she could to help him keep his balance. He sat down again a moment later, putting his hands on her neck. "Try circling around. Pepper might have tried to land somewhere safer—"

Both of them were so busy looking down, scanning Shade's campus for a glimmer of red hair, that they hadn't been paying any attention to the sky above them. A shadow fell over them both, and claws raked at her back. She twisted in the air to get Jaune out of the way, and saw a water dragon. She was fully grown, all steely-grey muscle, and her rider wasn't carrying a whip... which meant he was probably a _professor._

Twiggy tried to escape, at least long enough to find Freya or Ao Guang, but it was hard enough just staying in the air with Jaune on her back. Another swipe from the claws caught her shoulder.

There was a roar that she felt right down to her bones. Twiggy flapped frantically, throwing herself out of the way of the biggest dragon she'd _ever _seen just before it smashed shoulder-first into the professor's dragon. For a second she thought he had to be one of Raven's rogues, _somehow, _even though she knew she'd never seen him before—the pit dragons didn't have riders. Then she realized that the 'rider' was on his _head..._ and there was a familiar red ponytail trailing her like a banner.

_"Pyrrha?!"_

On impact with the other dragon, she lurched forward on the pit dragon's head and clung even tighter to his curved black horns. Twiggy couldn't understand how he was even _flying _like that. He snarled and lashed out at the professor with his claws. The other dragon roared, enraged, and grappled the pit dragon.

The two of them rolled sideways. Pyrrha swung part of the way upside-down, clinging to the dragon's horns and hooking her feet around two of the spines jutting from the corners of its jaws. Twiggy let out a cry of distress—and heard another call echo it. Freya and Ao Guang swept over the roof of a nearby building, though both made a wide circle around the two brawling dragons.

Twiggy understood why... but she had to do something. She edged closer. The pit dragon tried to cuff her with one of its wings, but she dodged and hovered close by its head. Jaune leaned out of the saddle, his arm stretching towards Pyrrha. "Grab on!"

"I can't!" A tail slammed into one of the pit dragon's horns, almost jarring Pyrrha from her place on its head. If she let go to try and grab Jaune...

The pit dragon snapped his head forward, his teeth sinking into the other dragon's throat. In an instant they were falling, tangled together, and the professor's expression went from fury to terror. "That's enough!" Pyrrha shouted. "They're down!" There was no way either the dragon or her rider could keep fighting with injuries like those. "Let go!"

He ignored her. The professor reached out to pry his jaws apart, but one of his arms was hanging limp, he couldn't reach, and even if he could he wouldn't have been strong enough. His dragon's struggles were getting weaker.

Pyrrha leaned down to glare into the pit dragon's eyes, and slammed a hand down on his nose. "No!"

He let go—but not out of obedience. The instant he wasn't attached to the other dragon, he whipped his head to one side and flung Pyrrha into open air.

Twiggy, Freya, and Guang all dived. She got there first, wrapping her forepaws around Pyrrha as she fought to keep her wings extended. There was a warning twinge in her chest, and she was still dropping _much _too fast.

Then Freya was there, and Nora grabbed Pyrrha's wrist to pull her into the saddle, and they all not-quite-crashed in the middle of Shade's lawn. The enormous pit dragon and the professor's partner landed a few dozen feet away. She curled up on her side, baring her throat in surrender. He nipped it again, this time lightly and without drawing blood, then stalked away with smoke billowing from his nostrils.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune launched himself off Twiggy's back. "Are you okay?!"

She blinked at him a few times. At some point her hair had come loose from her ponytail, and it was sticking up in every direction. "...Yes," she said, looking down at herself as if slightly surprised.

Nora burst out laughing. "That was the coolest thing I've ever seen!" she squealed, and grabbed Pyrrha in a hug.

"Nora," she croaked. "Air."

When she slipped from the saddle, Jaune caught her and pulled her in close. She yelped. He let go immediately, stammering apologies, but Pyrrha just shook her head. "It's fine, I just... well..." She extended an arm, showing the burns on her hands elbows. "I don't think that dragon appreciated being ridden."

Twiggy growled low in her throat, turning her head to glare off in the direction he'd gone. If he were still there—well... okay, that would go _terribly,_ she was pretty sure his tail was longer than her entire body, but being enormous didn't give him the right to burn her human!

Ren laid a hand on her shoulder. "Probably not, but I'm sure the professor's dragon is glad you did."

"Yeah." Jaune tried another hug—this time being careful to avoid any injuries. "That was... _incredible,_ I'm not gonna lie, but... please don't ever do it again."

Pyrrha made a half-hearted attempt to brush her hair out of her face. "Trust me," she said, with a slight smile. "I wasn't planning on it."

* * *

Emerald took slow, deep breaths as she clung to Jade, reeling from the chaos all around them. It was taking an effort not to retch. Shade was... bloodier than Haven.

Better not to look. She had a job to do—couldn't lose focus. So she urged Jade on, and the two of them loped around to the side of the main building. The dragon handled the door. She could've picked the lock, but it was a lot faster to break it down.

"Urr?"

Emerald almost jumped out of her skin, but when she whirled around it was just one of the pit dragons. It didn't look hostile, either. Just fixed her with a curious stare, flexing its forepaws. Its claws were missing, and it was wearing a leather muzzle.

"Hi?" She backed into the building with Jade behind her. It followed. Judging by its orange scales, it was a fire dragon. There was a stripe of gold running from its nose to the back of its neck, almost like a crown. "Are you... looking for someone?"

Blank stare.

Well. She supposed this would make it easier to start a fire, afterward. "You can follow me, if you want."

Emerald half expected it to hiss at her—she'd only been around them a few hours, but she'd already noticed that most of the pit dragons didn't take very kindly to being told what to do. This one trotted after her like an obedient puppy.

Jade walked side by side with the other dragon. Emerald thought she must be trying to talk to it... and judging by her confused snort, she wasn't having much luck with that. She was glad when they finally reached the door Cinder had told her to look for.

"Okay. Go time."

Jade took a step towards the door... and the pit dragon pounced at it, slamming it off its hinges. It looked up at Emerald, its tail wagging, its ears tilted halfway up as if it was hoping for praise—and worried it might be punished instead. After a shocked pause she mustered, "Er, thanks?"

It rumbled contentedly and backed up, letting her step over the shattered remains of the door—and into Shade's injection lab. There weren't any eggs this time of year, but there were shelves crammed with expensive equipment for incubation and injection, as well as instruction manuals for using all of them. Emerald shoved as much as she could into several bags strapped to Jade's saddle. Then when she was finished the pit dragon nosed at the remaining equipment, nudging it into a little pile and looking at her expectantly.

"No thanks," she said, still a little nonplussed. "I don't have any more saddlebags. And you don't have a saddle." Its ears drooped pathetically. Emerald glanced around. "But... you _can_ help me with something else." The way it perked up was almost cute, if she didn't think too hard about what people had been ordering it to do before it was rescued. "I just need to take this muzzle off first, if that's okay?"

Several minutes later they were back outside. A fire could be seen through the windows, merrily devouring everything she hadn't already stolen from the lab. The pit dragon looked quite pleased with itself. Without thinking, Emerald reached out to scratch behind its ears—and snatched her hand back as her instincts _screamed _at her for doing something that stupid. But the pit dragon didn't try to bite her. Instead it backed itself against the wall of the academy, its wings curled around itself.

"I'm sorry—" Emerald tried to soothe it, but it just scrunched itself into an even smaller ball. She sighed and pulled out her scroll.

Cinder's smooth voice came through the line. "Are you finished?"

"Yes. I took everything I could, and one of the pit dragons set the place on fire."

"Good. Anything... else?"

Emerald gripped the scroll a little tighter. "I found formulas. Old ones, from before the ban on hybrids."

She could _hear _the satisfied smirk. "That's _very _good. We're pulling out now, before the council's reinforcements can get here."

"Right."

A click, and then silence.

Emerald reminded herself that the students were still getting used to the fight they were in. They wouldn't understand the kinds of sacrifices Cinder had to make. She was saving the dragons, but to do that she needed help, she needed hybrids. And getting them... wasn't as simple as finding some old formula.

So later, when she told the students like she'd been ordered to, there wasn't going to be even a quiver in her voice. She'd look Ruby in the eyes and tell her _exactly _what she needed to hear.


	37. Rebirth

**Hello again! I'm back with another chapter, this time starring questionable coping mechanisms.**

* * *

**37\. Rebirth**

* * *

"Shh... easy, it's alright..."

Sage crouched down, hunching his shoulders a bit to make himself look smaller. He put both hands flat on the ground. Stayed very, very still.

The pit dragon didn't move from where it had wedged itself into an opening between two rocks, one that was much too small for it. It was a water dragon, with sleek dolphin grey scales that faded to white on its underbelly. Wide sea-green eyes peered at him as it squirmed, trying to back further into the cave. It was trembling from head to toe.

Sage wasn't exactly sure why it had chosen to come with them—it had been skittish since the battle at Shade, and half an hour ago it had been startled so badly by one of the older pit dragons that it had hidden in this cave and refused to come out. Raven and Cinder had rapidly run out of patience. The rest of the group was still moving, as quickly as they could with the pit dragons that had decided to stay with them, and they had to go soon if they wanted to catch up.

"You need to come out of there, sweetie," Scarlet said urgently. "We're still too close to Shade, they'll find you."

A terrified _eep, _and the dragon ducked its head behind one wing. Scarlet put a palm to his face. "I'll just leave this to the expert."

Sage lay down on his back with his arms tucked under himself. "Look. I can't hurt you like this."

One eye peered out from behind a wing.

"Do you want to smell?"

The head poked out slightly, just enough for sunlight to fall across its face. Livid scars stood out on its muzzle—recent ones, by the look of them. It looked about the same age as Zircon.

A cautious sniff, and it retreated back into its shelter... though it seemed a little less eager to squish itself into a ball, now.

"Scar?"

"...You want me to do that too, don't you?"

Sage nodded.

"These are my only clothes. I just want you to know that, because I'm lying on the ground for you right now."

Even their dragons took on the most nonthreatening postures they could, folding their wings and lying on their bellies. Zircon barked occasionally, like he was trying to help coax out the frightened water dragon. Slowly, it crept out from its little shelter and sniffed the air.

Zircon wagged his tail. The other dragon approached... and hesitantly touched his nose before pulling back and wrapping its wings around itself.

"Are you ready to keep going?" Sage asked.

The pit dragon hesitated, pondering the question... but before it could decide, Sage heard frenzied barking. He barely kept himself from swearing out loud—trying to force the pit dragon out of its shelter was what had started this whole mess in the first place. But the brick red earth dragon that bounded towards them was riderless.

As it approached the trembling water dragon froze, wide-eyed. Then the earth dragon pounced, and the two of them rolled onto the ground. "Stop!" Sage shouted. He'd already seen a few of the pit dragons brawling with one another in the past hour, but this one was too—

The earth dragon licked the other's face. It rolled off and to the side, then ran in excited circles, still barking. The water dragon sniffed it a few times, its eyes going even wider. Two more emerged from the woods. A cloudy grey wind dragon, and a fire dragon with scales that faded from pale blue to gold.

Four different elemental dragons. All about the same age as Zircon... and all from the pits.

When the earth dragon bounded off in the direction the main group had gone, the other three followed—even the shaky water dragon.

"Well," Scarlet said, after a brief, shocked pause. "I for one wish they'd decided to do that _before _we spent half an hour trying to coax it out of there." Then, he seemed to notice the look on Sage's face. "What's wrong?"

"I think they're siblings. Those four."

Zircon let out a low whine and nodded.

Scarlet inhaled sharply. "The whole _team?"_

"Must have been." Sage dusted some of the dirt off his back. "We should go before something else holds us up."

As they walked, Scarlet bumped their shoulders together. "Zircon's lucky he had you."

Sage tried to smile, but it didn't come. Zircon shouldn't have needed to be lucky.

* * *

Glynda silently took back every unkind thought she'd ever had about the unruliness of teenagers. Beacon had been so very simple to manage—at least compared to _this._

"Let. Go," she snapped. _"Now."_

Pink eyes glared at her in open challenge as the grey wind dragon kept her jaws firmly shut. Tank whimpered and pawed at her, trying to get her to release her grip on his tail. A red earth dragon paced around the pair, whining in distress, and Russel was only barely keeping Barracuda from jumping into the fray.

Glynda did _not _want this to turn into another fight. There had been three of those already—two involving this same little hellion. The third had been worse than both the others combined. It had involved two of the biggest and oldest pit dragons, and had taken the combined efforts of Pepper, Strike, Phoenix, _and _an earth dragon that looked nearly as old as Ragnar to break up. The massive fire dragon had refused to let anyone close enough to treat the scratches on his shoulder, afterward.

The wind dragon hissed through the mouthful of Tank's tail. She hadn't broken skin yet—the situation was still salvageable. Glynda gave her the same stern look she would have used on a young fire dragon. She certainly had the temper of one. "If you want to come with us, let go of him _now. _If not, I'm sure we can find somewhere else for you to stay."

And if Raven or Cinder objected, Glynda would take the damned troublemaker to a broodery _herself._ She wouldn't have much difficulty convincing them to let her go, useless as she was without Nautilus.

But the instant the threat left her mouth, the earth dragon yelped and pawed at his sister's side. She glared at him for a moment, then reluctantly released Tank. Glynda let herself soften. "That's good. Thank you." A wary glare was the only response she got before the wind dragon slunk away.

Russel muttered venomously under his breath. "Seriously? That's it?"

"Is there something else you'd prefer we did, Mister Thrush?" she asked dryly, crouching to examine Tank's tail. It looked slightly bruised, but otherwise fine. No need for disinfectant, which was good—the older two had used half a bottle between them.

"I don't know." He kicked at the ground, frustrated.

Dove busied himself with Tank, stroking his head and murmuring softly in his ear. Then he looked up. "I don't see why we're bringing them with us when they keep doing stuff like this."

Glynda grimaced. "I'd prefer to rehabilitate them at a broodery, but we don't have the luxury at the moment." _And Cinder wants them to help her fight._ That thought soured her a little.

"Okay, but can't you get them to stop biting each other? And _us?"_ Russel demanded.

"Mister Thrush, I am a _teacher, _not a magician. It's going to take more than a day to help them unlearn all those aggressive behaviors."

"I guess. But if we had more time, could we like... tame them?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Not if you mean the fully grown adults that have been forced to kill each other, _no."_

Hours later, when they were finally forced to stop and rest, they'd covered only half the distance they'd intended. The council's army couldn't pursue them, though—they were still moving faster than footsoldiers, and the enemy didn't have enough dragons to attack them head-on.

So they made camp as best they could, and Glynda resigned herself to a sleepless night. A few of the pit dragons fell asleep quickly. Most... did not. They paced around the camp, clearly agitated. Maybe they wanted to be further away, or maybe they couldn't sleep comfortably in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar humans and faunus. Whatever the reason, she didn't think it was a good idea to let them roam without at least keeping an eye on them.

She walked a slow circuit around the camp, keeping her eyes and ears peeled. When she heard a low bark, she struck out to investigate. A huge square head loomed over a clump of trees—the scales so dark that it looked like a dragon-shaped cutout. Tar.

When the stepped around the trees, she found more than just Tar. Mudslide was curled on her side, her eyes half-lidded from sleep. Glynda was slightly startled to see both Sky and Pyrrha leaning against her side.

"Hello, Professor."

"Miss Nikos. Mister Lark." Glynda glanced at Tar. "What are you all doing out here?"

"Jaune and Twiggy are asleep," Pyrrha explained. "I couldn't."

Glynda glanced at Sky, who shrugged. "I sleep okay like this. But this one came to say hi."

"Yes. Hello, Tar."

The dragon greeted her with a low rumble. She held a hand out, palm-up, keeping it very still. Tar hesitated. Then she sniffed it cautiously, and pressed her nose against it. Glynda felt the small shudder that went through her, and pulled away.

"I don't understand," Pyrrha said softly. "She's from Beacon?"

"She is. She can't control her powers—they go haywire whenever she tries to use them. Ozpin hid it as long as he could, but she and her rider graduated a few years ago. The council found out, and they went rogue. As to how she ended up here... that, I don't know."

He'd never have let her go to the pits willingly. Which meant...

"Professor?"

She snapped back to herself. "Yes, Miss Nikos?"

Pyrrha's expression was understanding. Compassionate. Glynda shut her eyes to blot it out.

"Would you like to sit with us, if you can't sleep?"

"There's no need."

"We don't mind." Pyrrha glanced at Sky, who shrugged.

"You are the last people in the world who should feel that they owe me anything." Her voice was sharp. "I failed you—all four of you."

"Yeah." Sky's jaw clenched. "You kinda did—"

"Stop it!" Pyrrha glared at him so fiercely that he scooted a few inches away from her. And when Glynda opened her mouth, she shook her head and held up a hand. "You didn't. I saw you, when Beacon fell." Her shoulders curled inwards, and her gaze fell to her lap. "You saved Twiggy." And, left unsaid—_I know how much it cost you._

"You didn't let me finish," Sky said, giving Pyrrha a wounded look. "I was just going to stay that I'm still pissed about how they handled Tornado. But there were so many dragons his age at the pits, and it made me realize... If we fuck this up, that's what Beacon will be like without you. Which would suck. Obviously."

She almost cracked, right then—but instead she drew herself up and nodded to the pair of them. "Anything you need, I will do my best to help with. And the offer is appreciated, but I really should keep going. I don't want another brawl to start."

Tar crooned softly, bumping her nose against her shoulder. Even Mudslide lifted her head, looking at her with mournful green eyes. And Glynda walked away—_ran _away, really. She didn't have time to break down, now, and it certainly wasn't going to be their responsibility to deal with it when she did.

She squared her shoulders. There was, as always, work to do.

* * *

For the first time in almost a year, Weiss sang with an audience.

It started with a young fire dragon that looked about Specter's age, with a gold stripe running from the tip of her nose down her neck. Weiss vaguely remembered Professor Goodwitch telling them that this one was female. She was also eerily calm as she nosed around their camp, snorting softly when she poked her head into Blake's tent.

"Um... hi?" Ruby offered a hand. The dragon drew back in an instant, her ears pinned back in fright. "Okay! It's okay, you don't have to."

Weiss tried humming to calm her down. She sat there, entranced, her tail flicking back and forth in time with the beat. A water dragon watched them from the distance. Her scales were a dark blue, almost black, with streaks of white. Slowly, she wandered over and draped a wing over the other dragon.

Their last visitor showed up minutes later—the enormous dusty-brown earth dragon with the missing foreleg. He'd been at the pit Blake and Weiss had broken into, and had done a lot to help calm the others down.

It was... oddly soothing. Their own dragons were already asleep. Weiss kept her singing quiet to avoid waking them up—and hopefully avoid drawing _too _many of the pit dragons at once. The earth dragon sniffed Pit and let out a small snort of surprise. Then he settled down on his belly next to Yang, and even let her pat his nose. The fire dragon sat motionless, as if hypnotized. The water dragon squinted at Weiss, and extended her neck towards her as if she was trying to get a better look. She leaned back unconsciously, until she almost fell over and the dragon backed up.

When she stopped singing, the earth dragon made a disappointed rumbling noise and the water dragon's ears drooped.

"Hey," Ruby said softly. "Do any of you want to tell us your names?"

The earth dragon flicked his ears. "Tum... tum..." It took several minutes—he spoke haltingly, as if he hadn't practiced in a while. Eventually, though, Yang managed to guess. Tumbleweed.

"Inn-kwuh. Uhll." The water dragon managed. That went a little faster—Inkwell.

"What about her?" Ruby asked, nodding at the youngest dragon. When Weiss had stopped singing, she'd turned her stare to the night sky and was gazing at it like she'd never seen it before. She might not have.

"Nno." Tumbleweed's tail drooped sadly.

"No?" Yang looked from him, to the fire dragon, then back again. "You mean, she doesn't have one?"

One of her ears flicked. She flexed her clawless paws and made a long, inquisitive noise. Tumbleweed tensed and responded with a low growl. She hissed.

Then, reluctantly, he spoke for her. "Guh-lorry."

"Did she pick that herself?" Blake asked.

Inkwell bared her teeth. "Nno."

Realization dropped into the pit of Weiss' stomach. "She didn't have a name... so they gave her one. At the pits."

Ruby hugged her arms around herself. "You're sure you want to keep it?"

The dragon made an affirmative noise.

"Okay..."

"But—" Yang started, and Ruby smacked her shoulder.

"It's her choice, isn't it?"

Glory kept her head tilted back, still drinking in the sight of the stars overhead. Tumbleweed left a few minutes later, padding off to find somewhere to sleep. Inkwell followed, with Glory still tucked under one of her wings.

Weiss slumped where she sat.

"You okay, there?" Yang asked.

"Not really, no." She looked up, imagining what it would be like to spend her whole life locked away from the sky. "Is it wrong that I still can't feel good about what just happened?"

"No." Blake drew her knees up to her chest. "I think it would be a big red flag if you could."

"But..." Ruby glanced towards where the pit dragons had disappeared. "They're free, now. They wouldn't be if we hadn't gone to Shade."

"I know. And I _don't _regret that. I just..." Weiss trailed off, looking for words.

Blake spoke up, hesitant. "Maybe... this is one of those things that we shouldn't feel good about, even if we needed to do it."

"Why _shouldn't _we?" Yang ran a hand through her hair. "I mean, _yeah _it was a mess, but... honestly? _We _didn't start keeping dragons in cages. _We _didn't force them to fight each other as babies. This had to happen _sometime."_

"People _died,_ Yang," Blake burst out. "Dragons, too. That's not..."

"I didn't mean it like that. But we didn't _start _this. We're just trying to fix what already went wrong a long time ago."

"I feel better now that we're at least doing something," Ruby admitted. "I couldn't stand waiting."

There was a tense silence. Weiss struggled to articulate what she wanted to say. "I don't regret what we did, but I can't help feeling like there was some way to do it better. Maybe if we'd gone to Shade first, and released the pit dragons after..."

"Weiss,_ stop." _Yang reached out to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Then she glanced towards Blake. "Both of you. Yeah, _maybe _it would've gone better if we'd done that, but maybe we wouldn't have been able to free the pit dragons at all. Either way, we already did it. If we don't do anything unless we're sure it's the _perfect _thing to do, we're not gonna get a whole lot done."

A little of the tension left her shoulders. "I suppose you're right."

Off to the left, a twig snapped. All four of them jumped—but it was just Emerald. "Hey."

"Hi," Ruby said, sitting up a little straighter.

Emerald glanced between them, before eventually settling on looking at Yang. "I thought I'd tell you—we took injection equipment and stuff from Shade." She grinned. "We found formulas."

Ruby's eyes went wide. "For the elementals?" she asked, still cautious.

"Nope. _Hybrids."_

"What?" Weiss was on her feet in an instant. "They kept them?"

"Some of them. They were locked in a safe, but one of the pit dragons helped me melt it open."

"Wait." Yang put up a finger. "So, the fire...?"

Emerald winced. "Yeah... but I saved most of the papers! There's one that had an illustration, I think it's for lightning and water."

Weiss' head spun. "I'd never have thought they'd... everything was _supposed _to be destroyed."

"I'm not exactly mad that someone didn't listen."

"No! No, of course not." Her brow furrowed. "It's just... odd. That's all." Who would have the authority to do that? One of the Dragonmasters? _Why?_ It didn't make sense, but if they could bring back the hybrids... The council had been afraid of them for a reason.

* * *

Scarred hands splayed over the shell. It was dark, with swirls of deep blue and copper that were only a few shades away from black, and webbed with gold.

"There you are," he murmured. "Go on. Come back to me."

Inside the egg, the hatchling stirred. Tyrian cooed and stroked the shell, talking to her in a sing-song voice and tapping with his fingernail. His beautiful dragonet tapped back. He crouched, his nose inches away from the shell as the egg tooth broke through.

Gently, so gently, he stroked her nose. She struggled, tiny forelegs emerging into open air, dripping with goo. Her scales were the same color as her egg—dark and glistening, like a copper mirror reflecting a stormy sea. Fine gold lines traced across them, forking like lightning.

"I like your new scales," he said, scratching her just under the chin. Her favorite spot. Her eyes blinked open—they were a vibrant shade of blue. They used to be yellow... but they were still bright, electric. Finally her gossamer wings emerged, and she shook herself.

"My Goddess," Tyrian whispered reverently. "Come to me. Come here..."

She butted her head against the towel as he dried her. Her gills opened and closed reflexively, and the odd spark jumped from the tips of her horns or the end of her tail. It was as flat as a water dragon's, but so long that it draped over the edge of the incubator and hung several feet towards the ground. Her clawed feet were webbed.

Tyrian picked her up, cradling her against his chest as she warbled uncertainly. "It's alright, Ozone. You've been reborn."

She cocked her head to one side, confused, and licked his nose.

"That's right." He stroked his thumb along the ridges on her brow. "A Goddess could never die."

* * *

**As you can see, Tyrian is a very reasonable and well-adjusted person, and the absolute king of healthy attitudes.**


	38. A Traitor Among Us

**Hello again, and happy Friday! This chapter we've got Ragnar in an argument, Sienna plotting, and Justice having a nice, polite chat.**

* * *

**38\. A Traitor Among Us**

* * *

"Gud-bye, Scarr."

"Ragnar..."

A hand reached out. Ragnar's head moved without thought, irresistibly. He breathed in the smell of hay and sweat and damp rich earth. It was nothing like Ozpin's scent, but somehow he'd associated them together. Maybe because it reminded him of sleeping in the earth stables, so very long ago.

"It's dangerous. You can't even fly yet."

There were a lot of things Ragnar could have said. He was a drain on the boy's farm—he never said anything, but he could tell he was struggling to keep up with a dragon's appetite. Oscar was in danger for hiding him. The council were already sniffing around, the boy had told him himself, it was only a matter of time before they found him.

But he didn't care about any of that. "Ozz."

Oscar looked down. Ragnar could see hesitation on his face... and then, a flash of something. A spark of determination that scared him more than any Grimm ever could. "I'm coming with you."

"No! Nnot safe."

"Of course I'll be safe." Oscar put his hands on his hips. "Unless you're saying that you won't be careful out there?"

Ragnar snorted indignantly. "Sscar... small. Rrak-narr old."

"And if you have to make sure _I'm_ safe, you won't jump headfirst into a fight with the council."

He changed tack. "Ahnt."

"I'll write her a note."

Ragnar gave the boy a disapproving glare.

"Fine! I'll explain to her, in person, that there's something really important I need to do and I'll be gone for a while."

"Nno."

"But—"

"Scarr... no need... ffight. No..."

"I know I don't have to." Oscar reached up to scratch behind his ears. Ragnar lowered his head, hating the purr that started in his chest. "I want to. I've always wanted to _do _something, something that matters. And I think this is it."

Ragnar set his jaw stubbornly, pulling his head back so the pleasant scratches would stop interfering with his judgment. "Nno."

"Do you want to go alone?"

He was silent—he couldn't lie to the boy that had saved his life.

"So let me help you."

"Not... Nnot..."

Oscar reached up to stroke his muzzle, pressed his forehead against his nose. "Please? I can't help feeling like you need someone."

For an instant he saw silver eyes boring into his own. Remembered the rage that had swept over him, carried him away from the horror and grief, made it so easy. It was simpler to go alone. He wanted to throw himself at the murderers who had stolen his rider from him, and trade his own life for as many of theirs as he could. If he were alone...

But he wasn't. There was Oscar, yes... and his students. Ozpin's students. All those younglings, stuck fighting a battle he and their professors had failed to win for them.

"Go," Ragnar said. "Ahnt. Talk."

Hope lit up the boy's face. "You mean...?"

"Scarr... come. Nno ffight! Sstay safe."

Oscar wrapped his arms around Ragnar's neck, hanging from him for an instant before he jumped away. "I will."

Ragnar ached. He'd held Ozpin as he cried, let him scratch the ridges under his eyes, flown with him into battle... but it had been a very long time since his rider had been so playful. Carefree. Too many years spent fighting Grimm. Too many reminders that the creatures of darkness were the least of their problems.

He nudged Oscar. "Go. Ahnt. Go."

The boy sprinted away, vanishing between the trees. Ragnar waited until he was out of sight before he curled up, putting his paws over his head and shaking silently. Wishing for the years when he'd slept in that earth stable, smelled those familiar smells. Wishing for the silver-haired boy who wrestled with him and built tiny clockwork toys. And wishing for the old man he'd become, the one who always knew what to do.

* * *

"Any hatchings today?"

Sienna already knew the answer. Corsac shook his head anyway. "They could start as soon as tomorrow, or as late as next week. It's hard to be sure."

They'd had their new equipment set up for several days now. Injections had resumed as normal. But they were only just now feeling the gap that the fire had caused, when the eggs that _should _have been prepared during that time hadn't been injected. Two dragons had hatched—both untouched by Dust. They'd already had plenty of broodies.

Sienna took a deep breath. They would recover the operation. She'd already gotten a message from Hazel promising several pieces of injection equipment and almost half a ton of Dust, all liberated from Shade. It would go some way towards making up for the egg they'd lost. Things were getting better.

She saw Ilia coming from across the camp. A junior member followed her, his wrist in her hand, as she flashed red and yellow to startle people out of her way. Sienna groped for his name and came up blank. One look at his wild eyes and sweaty face had her dreading what he was about to say.

"Sienna!" Ilia stopped in front of her, slightly out of breath, and shoved him forward. "Tell her what you told me, Perry."

He pushed his glasses up with a shaky hand. "Trifa's missing."

_"What?"_

"I don't know what happened! We were on watch last night, and she went off to chase this rabbit—"

He quailed at the look Sienna was giving him.

"I know we're supposed to stay together, but we've been hungry! I looked, and I found... I found her knife."

Sienna tried not to explode at him. "Ilia, go tell the Albains and the Lieutenant. Perry, show me the knife."

It was worse than she'd thought. Scraps of webbing hung between two trees, shredded by something sharp. And Trifa's knife lay in the dirt, a trace of red on the tip. Blood, not ichor.

"Not a Grimm." A human, or a faunus, must have been trapped in that webbing, and cut themselves free. Trifa had wounded them, whoever they were... and there was more webbing a little further along. Trampled undergrowth. She'd dropped the knife, maybe, and tried to run. Could she have gotten away?

No. She would have come back to the camp by now.

Sienna whirled on Perry. "Did you see anything?"

"I thought I heard a noise, but by the time I got here she was gone."

First Thistle, and now Trifa. The first disappearance she'd thought was probably a Grimm, but _now..._ Someone was ambushing their people in the woods. Someone was sabotaging their equipment. And she was willing to bet the two were one and the same.

"Ilia," she snapped, and jerked her head off to the left. They followed Trifa's trail as far as they could, but it didn't take long for them to run out of clues to follow. By then they . "This is too much to be coincidence. We've moved twice now, and it hasn't helped."

Supplies kept going missing, then turning up days later, torn to shreds. Someone knew exactly where they were, exactly where they kept everything... either there was someone following them—and camping out right under their noses without anyone noticing, which was impossible. Or...

"It's one of us."

Ilia turned a sickly shade of green. "I... I thought it might be, but..."

Sienna started to pace. "There aren't many people I can eliminate as suspects. I doubt the Lieutenant would work with humans, and you've been loyal to the organization for years."

"You can trust me."

"Don't," Sienna snapped. "Just... don't. I _am _trusting you. And you're the only one that can do this, anyway."

"Do... what?"

"Prepare. I don't want to break with Cinder yet—not when we have so few dragons—but if things keep going the way they are, she'll drop us. So we do damage control. I'll go to the Albains and the Lieutenant, and we'll arrange for some of the incubators to go missing. It won't look out of place, at this rate. Some of the eggs will hatch prematurely."

Ilia nodded slowly. "And Fennac and the Lieutenant will get some of those 'premature' eggs."

"Exactly. On your end..." Sienna paused, watching the girl's face carefully. "I need you to pay a visit to Blake Belladonna."

The reaction was violent, and immediate. She went stoplight red, then paper white, and finally settled on a fluorescent shade of pink. "I don't—"

Sienna relaxed slightly. The connection between the two made her uneasy... but the fact that Ilia was so transparent about it was good. She didn't seem like she'd even be _capable _of lying. "Take Justice. I managed to wheedle a rough location for Raven's next campsite from Hazel, so it shouldn't take too long to find them. Don't let anyone else see you."

"But... what do you want me to do?"

"My job is to strengthen us. Yours is to weaken Cinder."

* * *

Suspicion buzzed at the back of Justice's mind all evening, until he finally slunk away from the camp and found the tree covered in shredded webs. He sniffed the base.

_Sand. Dead grass. Ash._

His head rose, his eyes straining in the dark. Justice followed his nose. He kept bumping into trees, but the smell grew stronger and stronger, until he stopped dead next to a small stream. The smell ended there. Had she walked through the water? Or...

Another sniff. _Sand. Dried leaves. Blood._ There was a dark stain on a nearby rock, where a drop of blood had fallen. The shadows were so thick he could hardly see, but he could make out the shape of a fallen tree. He set his foot against it, to turn it over—

_Pain._ Claws raked across his foreleg, and a blast of dry air hit his chest. Scales cracked. Justice strangled his roar. "Wait!" he hissed. A flash of pale yellow, catching a shaft of moonlight that penetrated the canopy of leaves overhead. Claws raked across his nose.

He tried to pin her. She twisted out of his grasp and pelted towards the stream on three legs, the fourth curled against her chest. Justice pounced.

They rolled over one another, hit the water. Mud flew everywhere. He ended up on top of her, pinning her against the riverbed, while she hissed and spat and struggled. Seconds later he realized her growling was pained, not angry.

The water?

Justice grabbed her in his jaws by the base of her neck and lifted her out of the stream. The water evaporated off her in a burst of steam. She twisted and bit him just under the jaw, and he finally whipped his head to the side and flung her away from him.

"Stop it!" he roared, putting a paw to the bite on his neck. "I just want to talk to you!"

She rose, her legs shaking under her. Now that she was standing nearer to the water, a little light came through the trees and he could see that there was a cut in her right foreleg. He remembered the knife. She bared her teeth, her head fins flaring.

"Why?" He moved to step forward, but froze when she crouched down as if to pounce. "Why are you doing this?"

All he got for an answer was a growl.

Justice wanted to be angry. He wanted to pin her down and grab her by the scruff and drag her back to the camp. But seeing her standing there, one leg folded under her, shaking, poised to flee... he just felt sad. "You can come back," he said, but he wasn't so sure that was true anymore. Sienna was so angry... and he'd be leaving soon, with Ilia.

"Can... can we talk?" He sat on his haunches. "Not about anything important. Just... for a little while, can we pretend none of it ever happened?"

Her ears twitched, and there was a hitch in her growl. "...Why?"

"I just... want to."

She bristled, bared her teeth again.

Justice let his ears droop. "I want to talk to someone. Like I used to talk to..."

"Rudder."

He jumped back as if she'd bitten him again. "How did you—?!"

"Heard." She started to pace back and forth, still limping, watching him. "Talk. Want. _Want..."_

It seemed neither of them could put it into words.

So Justice started to talk about Haven. About Rudder and Jade and Whisper. About Brand and Harbinger. About Ilia. But never about the Dust explosions, the missing supplies. The missing people. At the thought, he broke off mid-sentence.

She still hadn't said more than five words to him. Her eyes gleamed in the dark as she tilted her head, waiting.

"You need to stop." He backed up. "You have to stop attacking them. I don't—_why?"_

Her injured foreleg flexed. "Hunters. Bad. Hurts..."

"No more," he said firmly. "If we're going to talk again, no more. You run away."

"Run." Her head bobbed, the tip of her tongue darting out like a snake's. "Do. Do run. They chase."

"I can keep visiting you, but only if you don't hurt them anymore. Please?"

She shuffled her wings. "Try. Will try."

"That's good." He shifted from paw to paw. "And you need to stop blowing up the camp, too. And no more stealing."

_"No."_

He reared back, startled. "I can't talk to you if you're—"

_"No!"_ Her eyes glittered. "Bad. Bad tent. Evil."

"It's not _evil._ It's just their lab."

"Go," she hissed. "Look."

"I'm not supposed to."

"No. No stop."

_"Fine," _he snarled, and turned to go. She bit the tip of his tail. "Hey!"

"Come. Talk. Talk more."

"I have to go now."

She pounced, her wings flapping wildly. Justice flared his own to knock her away. She landed on her feet and skidded in the dirt. Crouched. Poised to leap at him again.

"I'll come back later!" he said hurriedly. "As long as you don't hurt anyone, I'll come back. Okay?"

She hissed at him and vanished into the brush.

Ilia met Justice on his way back to camp, her skin shifting rapidly from red to yellow to orange. He told her it had been a Grimm. "Dead," he said, over and over, but the panicked look in her eyes only grew. He didn't let her try to bandage his cuts, for fear she'd notice the dried, cracked scales on his chest.

That night he lay down, wide awake, even though Ilia had told him they were waking up early tomorrow, because Sienna had an important mission for them. Justice whimpered to himself and put his paws over his head. Now he was lying to his rider. He should tell her... tell her...

_"Come. Talk. Talk more."_

He wasn't a traitor. He wasn't bad... but he wanted. He wanted so badly it felt like he was boiling. And no matter how much he shouldn't, he couldn't stop.

_She won't hurt the faunus anymore,_ he told himself. _And if she does..._ He'd have to tell them, then. Justice curled into a ball and let out a low, piteous whine.

* * *

"Blake. I'm here because... there's something you need to know."

Ilia groaned and buried her head in her hands. "Idiot. She's going to ask _why _you're telling her all this."

She kept her voice low, addressing her hands where they tangled together in her lap. She'd tried to sleep, she really had—but at some point she'd given up and sat up on her sleeping bag, whispering so quietly that her voice hardly reached her own ears.

"You need to know who you're working for." She clenched her hands into fists. "So you can run off and leave everyone you know behind! _Again!"_

Her voice rose. Justice stirred where he slept, curled around his injuries, smoke billowing between his jaws when he snored. An ear flicked once. Ilia stayed silent, watching him in case he moved again. Her heart clenched at the sight of the long scratches on his nose.

_"Dead," _he'd said. Killed a Grimm all alone in the woods. No hesitation. No fear. And she wasn't even surprised. She remembered him looming in a haze of smoke, an ominous glow coming from the back of his throat. Sweat beading on her forehead as she stood between him and the human that had tried to kill her. _"Bad," _he'd said.

"Sienna is trying to get rid of them," she tried instead. "Because they're... meddling, they want to make us go faster—"

Her skin turned a putrid yellow-green. She couldn't lie to Blake. Not when she'd seen Sienna fuming, the desperate light in her eyes as she talked about the sabotage. _"I'll deal with the traitor."_ And after a whole week without a single dead hatchling, all anyone wanted to do was get things back on schedule.

Ilia forced herself to take a deep breath. "You didn't want to be part of what they were doing in the labs anymore, but you still are. Except now it's some human calling the shots and not—"

She choked on the words. On the memory of a tungsten chain winding around Brand's forepaws, the lean and sullen look that had haunted him for years. They'd tended to him together. She'd thought that was what fire dragons were like, what _Brand _was like. With Hazel...

He was gaining weight. The growling and snarling whenever someone reached out a hand had turned into wary sniffs and, rarely, a light touch of his nose. He still slept long into the afternoon and spent his nights tossing and turning and blowing smoke... but he was better. And it seemed like he was getting gentler every day, while Justice was only getting wilder.

_I can't._

She didn't dare mouth the words.

There was no right way to say this. No right way to lie—by omission or otherwise. Not when she already owed Blake so much, for never saying those things she'd thought were jealousy. She just couldn't do it.


	39. The Pit Dragons

**Hi again! This chapter, we've got Tai and Qrow having a surprisingly productive conversation, and team JNPR's first day at a high-stakes, unpaid babysitting job.**

* * *

**39\. The Pit Dragons**

* * *

"And we'd have titles, obviously, but like... we'd be really relaxed in how people use them. Because _I'm _down to earth, and you're really relaxed in general, and not everyone can pronounce Grand Vizzer anyway, so—" She glanced at Ren and cut off abruptly. "What?"

He had a small, sleepy smile on his face, and it didn't go away even when she noticed it. "Nothing."

"That is _definitely _a something look."

Ren hummed thoughtfully, running a hand along Ao Guang's neck. They were all mounted up—though they were close enough to Raven's camp that they were walking instead of flying, so no one would see them in the air and know where to look for them.

Several minutes passed, and Ren still hadn't answered the question. Nora stuck her tongue out at him, and he gave her the same look _again,_ and she jabbed an accusatory finger in his direction. "See! You're having thoughts. Tell me!"

"I was just thinking." He glanced around, nudged Guang a little closer to Freya. "About how glad I am we're together."

It took a second for her brain to stop short-circuiting. "Like, together, or... together together?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Nora spent the rest of the walk fidgeting so much that Freya kept looking back at her, probably to make sure she hadn't accidentally squirmed her way out of the saddle. And the more flustered she got the more she started babbling, and that made Ren give her that look again, which made her _even more flustered _until she had to reach over and tap him on the nose.

"What was that for?"

Nora winked. "Nothing!"

Time slipped by. It was even easier to talk to him now that they didn't have to hide her dumb smiles anymore. She almost didn't notice how close they were getting to their destination, until Freya slipped between a few trees and they were practically on top of Raven's camp.

Raven and her tribe would stop here, waiting for news of the next attack, and Sky and his team had decided to stay with them. Everyone else would head north, towards where Cinder had set up her operations, after they had a chance to rest up and prepare for the journey. Of course, they were sleeping in the camp tonight. Which meant...

"Good," Vernal said, sitting up in the saddle and glaring at several of the students—especially Yang. "You can all make yourselves useful looking after the pit dragons while they're here."

Well. That definitely beat gathering firewood! Nora glanced at the towering fire dragon that Pyrrha had ridden at Shade. Probably. It _probably _beat gathering firewood... and it definitely wouldn't be boring!

They hadn't even been walking around for half an hour before Nora heard the first fight. The two of them dashed past a few trees and found two of the pit dragons snapping and snarling at one another. Their enormous tails pounded the dirt, and small trees splintered beneath their gigantic paws.

She and Ren sprinted over, ready to intervene—but it was already over. The orange wind dragon snorted approvingly at the muddy green water dragon, then butted her head affectionately against his shoulder. Nora froze with one foot in the air as both heads turned towards her and Ren. Ears lowered, and one set of teeth and one pair of pink gums were bared.

"Are you two good now?" Nora asked, folding her arms over her chest and giving them a stern look. Neither of them looked hurt, which was good, but the fighting was getting seriously—

Freya nudged her shoulder.

"What is it, girl?"

"Rrak-tiss."

Nora glanced at the two very annoyed dragons, and realized. "Oh, practice?"

The water dragon nodded.

"...Oops."

"What are your names?" Ren asked. It had become a common question, though not all of the dragons would answer. The wind dragon turned up her nose on the spot. The water dragon...

"Llu-phhbt"

"Um... Rupert?" Nora guessed.

He huffed in frustration and tried again, but with his teeth gone it was pretty much impossible to understand him. Ren had noticed the same thing. "Do you mind if our dragons help?"

A shake of his head.

"Die-vrr," Freya said.

"Pleased to meet you, Diver!" Nora didn't stick out a hand—she'd learned the hard way that they didn't like that. He inclined his head and kept his distance.

The wind dragon glared at him for a moment and said, "Duh-ssk."

"Hello, Dusk." Ren nodded at her. She hissed and flicked her ear dismissively.

"I'm Nora! This is Ren and Freya and Ao Guang!" A slow, confused blink from Diver. "We're glad you guys weren't fighting."

Especially since Dusk had been the one who got in a brawl with the big guy the other day. And, speaking of the devil—

A roar, loud enough even from across the camp to make Ren put his hands over his ears. Ao Guang whined softly. A plume of smoke billowed up moments later, and a hideous shriek rang out.

_Yep. Definitely not boring._

* * *

"Tai."

A grunt. The mass of blond hair shifted, and one of the man's arms flopped over the side of the couch. Qrow pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you drunk, Tai?"

One blue eye cracked open. "No," he said testily. "And you of all people—"

"Yeah, yeah." Qrow sat down heavily on the arm of the couch. Tai let his head fall forward so that his face was planted in the cushions. "Can you get up for a second? I need to talk to you."

"What?"

"I hate to ask, but... you were a teacher for a while, weren't you?"

Tai narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Yeah. At Signal. Why?"

"Well... they shot me down."

"I'm not surprised."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, asshole."

"Not what I meant, you jerk." Tai pushed himself into a sitting position and blinked a little of the sleep out of his eyes. There were dark shadows under them, and more lines in his face than Qrow remembered. "They're not stupid. And they're not taking any more chances. Right?"

"Yeah. But I thought if you—"

"They'll turn me down the same as you, and for the same reason. You know that. So why are you asking?"

"I got kicked out."

"What? I thought they already told you no."

"Yeah. I've been... sort of... hanging around anyway."

"You. Have been hanging around a school. That you don't work at."

"Yep."

_"Qrow!"_

"What _else _am I supposed to do? You haven't _seen _it, Tai. They've got shutters over the barns!"

"Shit." Tai put his face in his hands. He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I don't know what you want me to do, Qrow."

His shoulders slumped. "I wanted you to tell me what we should do," he admitted. "Which was a dick move considering I have no idea."

Silence. Then Tai looked at him, and Qrow felt his heart clench before he even asked. "Did you find anything, about the girls?"

"No. Radio silence."

Tai rubbed his face, the calluses on his palms rasping against stubble.

"That's a good sign," Qrow insisted. "It means they haven't gotten caught. And I haven't tried Raven, yet."

"You haven't? I thought—"

"I asked around at the usual place. She hasn't responded." Tai tensed. "Nothing to worry about," Qrow said quickly. "She ignores me all the time."

Tai let out a bitter chuckle. "Says a lot about how screwed up we are that I find that comforting."

"Yeah. Well."

"Yeah."

Qrow rubbed his eyes. He needed a drink. "Got any scotch?"

"I think there's beer in the fridge."

"Good enough, I guess."

He handed one to Tai and took a swig of the other. The two of them sat together, staring into space.

Qrow broke the silence. "Oz would know what the hell we should do."

There was a faraway look in Tai's eyes.

"Glynda, too. She was good at planning."

Still no response.

"Peter... Peter'd get the job somehow. Don't know how the hell he does that. And Barty would've found the kids by now."

Tai's breath hitched. "Summer could've made it better."

"Yeah." Qrow downed another sip of beer and grimaced. It tasted like the sort of thing a teenager would get their hands on, not what a self-respecting adult bought at a liquor store. Maybe it was Yang's.

"We're useless," Tai said, staring blankly at the wall.

"And a mess." Qrow toasted the bottles together.

"It's a shame," Tai said, after another long silence. "I liked teaching."

"You did?"

"Yeah. It was all theory at Signal, but it was... relaxing."

"Why'd you stop?"

"I like hunting better."

Qrow's brow furrowed. "So... why'd you start?" He felt like he ought to remember, but he hadn't been home much back then.

"Yang." Tai wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "I wanted something stable. Safe. Didn't want to leave her alone. Summer—" his voice cracked. "She helped with bills. And the girls. And..."

Qrow cracked a smile. "Whipping us idiots into shape."

"Yeah." Tai tilted his bottle in a slow circle, watching the beer swirl around the bottom. "They really put shutters on the barns?"

"Saw 'em myself."

"And they still have riders there?"

Qrow sneered. "Shit ones. The council got rid of the sight test—they've been waiting for an excuse, anyway. Most of the little snots are the type who don't care about what the place is turning into."

Tai froze. Then, slowly, "Must be a lot of disappointed kids out there."

"Probably. And the only ones who graduate this year will be the council's perfect little drones." Qrow's lip curled. "And what have we got? Two drunk idiots—"

"Beer hasn't been able to get you drunk since we were kids."

"Two drunk idiots, and_ Jimmy."_ Qrow spat the name, seething. "He let them make the same changes in Atlas. The shutters, combat tests for everyone... He's folding. The bastard shouldn't be able to, with that steel rod up his—"

"There has to be a school the council doesn't own."

Qrow glared at Tai. "Yeah, well, if he's gotta bend over for them to keep it, that kinda defeats the purpose."

"That's not what I meant." Tai sat up straighter. The lethargy of the past few weeks had fallen away, and Qrow could see gears turning behind his eyes. "Exactly how illegal is it, do you think? To open a Dragonry?"

The bottle Qrow had been nursing hit the carpet with a dull thunk. "It isn't." He ran a hand through his hair. "It'd be impossible to compete with the others, normally. You'd need the funding for eggs, injection equipment, grounds..."

"I have eggs. And I can probably get more from Violet Broodery at a discount. We'd only need a little equipment, if we started small. And if I slept in Quake's stall and we—" Tai stopped for a moment, choking on the words. "And we used the girls' rooms... we could put up a few kids."

"Holy shit, Tai." Qrow stood up, feeling slightly dazed. "Where would we get students?"

"Other riders. I know some that retired and had kids. Then we expand from there, keep it as secret as we can until it's bigger. Harder to shut down."

"Okay." Qrow ran a hand through his hair. "Okay. Shit, I gotta write this down."

"You can teach water and fire," Tai went on. "I remember you were pretty good with Phoenix."

"She almost took my hand off."

_"Almost."_ Tai grinned. "And I've been working with Tempest a long time. If she helps I'm sure I can handle wind as well as earth."

"That's if we even have four students to start with."

"Yeah, but... we can _do _this." Tai grabbed his shoulders, still with that idiot smile on his face.

"I've got some money." Qrow took a few steps towards the door. Despite himself, he could feel Tai's excitement catching him up in its wake. "Salty's outside. I'll be back with some... needles. And Dust. And... things."

"Qrow."

"I know what I'm doing!"

"Go to the library first, dumbass! We're gonna need to know how those _things _work."

Qrow flipped him off as he stumbled out the door.

* * *

"Hello?" Pyrrha waved. The pink earth dragon picked up her head, blinking at her as if slightly startled. "I'm Pyrrha. What's your name?"

A confused rumble.

"Um. Pyrrha glanced at Jaune, who was standing next to her. He shrugged helplessly. "There's some extra food—if you couldn't find any hunting." It was part of why Raven's tribe moved so often. Feeding over a dozen dragons was no mean feat.

For a few more seconds she kept staring at them. Then she put both her paws over her ears and shook her head.

"You... can't hear me?"

There was, as usual, no response.

"Her name's Granite."

Pyrrha started at Russel's voice. Barracuda was with him, greeting Granite with a cautious sniff. "Did she tell you that?"

"Nope. Barracuda did."

"Can she understand us?" Jaune asked. "Because a few of them—"

"I dunno." He tossed a haunch of meat on the ground next to her. "I just know she can't talk."

"Are you sure you should be throwing it around like that?" He pointed to the meat. "Professor Goodwitch told us to make sure there aren't any others around, first."

"Uh... why? We're feeding all of them."

Pyrrha scowled. "Yes, but in the pits they had to fight for their food. They haven't forgotten that."

"Oh. Whoops." Russel bent to pick it up, then retreated when Granite snapped at him. "Yeah, okay! No take-backs, I gotcha. But would you mind maybe going somewhere less—"

A shadow unfolded from the trees. A very large, horned shadow. "Back up," Pyrrha said, putting a hand out to drag Jaune away. The gigantic fire dragon reared up and shrieked at the top of his lungs... and Granite kept chewing, apparently unconcerned.

_Or..._ she couldn't hear him.

"Turn around!" Pyrrha waved frantically at her. But just as she finally caught the dragon's attention, she was bowled over.

"Ah, fuck." Russel backed up another few steps. "Hey! Big bastard!"

Granite's eyes widened as she realized who had just pounced on her—but she recovered quickly, batting at his face and kicking up dirt. He snarled and spat a gout of fire... right onto a clump of bushes.

The two dragons rolled over and over, snapping and biting. Fire spread. Jaune and Russel shouted at them to stop, and Pyrrha sprinted closer. She had to dive out of the way of Granite's tail when it slapped against the ground, then duck one of the fire dragon's flailing claws. Finally she managed to circle around to his head.

"You have to stop!"

His eyes snapped to her. For a moment he let go of Granite, hissing and drawing himself up. There was a long, low growl—not a word, but she understood the sentiment. _You again._

"Someone will see the f—"

He _shrieked._ Pyrrha clapped both hands over her ears, doubling over as the enraged cry went on and on. Then something solid hit her in the stomach and bowled her over. She lay there, stunned, her ears ringing, until she felt Jaune's hand on her shoulder.

His mouth was moving. She guessed what he was saying and said, "I'm fine!" Judging by the look on his face, it had come out a bit louder than she'd meant it to.

The fire was spreading. Pyrrha struggled to her feet, already choking on the smoke. Granite managed to get on top of the other dragon for a moment, pinning him and scratching at his belly. He responded with another blast of fire, one that caught several trees.

"Ah, _shit." _Russel ripped off his vest and started swinging it at the burning branches. "Fuck!"

"You're just fanning them around!" Jaune yelped, grabbing his wrist. Barracuda and Twiggy were already stamping at the bushes. Smoke billowed up into the sky. Pyrrha thought about running back to the camp to warn everyone... but something told her that the massive fire would tell them all they needed to know. It wasn't the first time.

She tried to stop the spread, smothering dry leaves as they started to catch, sweating and coughing and panting for breath. Twiggy stayed next to her. She warbled in distress and attacked the fire with her spade-like paws. Jaune and Russel chased the brawling dragons, shouting at them from a distance, trying to get them to stop. More jets of fire hit the woods every time they started to make progress putting it out.

Finally, Twiggy reared up. She roared at the fire, her tail thrashing behind her, and came crashing down to the ground with all her weight. There was a tremor that almost knocked Pyrrha off her feet, and a wave of fresh earth burst from the point of impact and smothered some of the fire."

They stared at one another. Twiggy seemed just as surprised as she was. "Let's handle this," Pyrrha suggested, "then show that off to Jaune."

The boys seemed to be finally making some progress. Russel held up another haunch of meat, shaking it back and forth, while Jaune patiently explained that if there was a giant column of smoke billowing from their campsite, the council _might _have an easier time tracking them down. Granite backed down in a heartbeat... but the fire dragon shot one last spiteful fireball into the trees.

Thankfully, Ren and Nora arrived a few seconds later—they'd been close by when the fire started. Ao Guang shot water at the fire while Granite and the other dragons kept it from spreading too far. Within a minute, it was out.

"Hey!" Russel wagged a finger at the fire dragon—from about forty feet away. "Big Bastard!"

The dragon hissed at him, letting a little fire show between his teeth. Barracuda nudged her rider and said, "Kuh. Kuh..."

Twiggy jumped in to help. Between the two of them, they eventually managed to translate his name—Crucible. By then he'd slunk away with the meat, casting evil glares over his shoulder as he went.

"And you _rode _that thing." Russel clapped Pyrrha on the shoulder. "You're fucking crazy."

"...Thank you?"

Night fell not long after that. There was only one other scuffle, between Kite and a dragon Nora told her was named Diver. Brick and his brother, who he introduced as Tallow, helped break it up. They all ate, then slouched their way back to their tents, exhausted.

Nora had long since abandoned all pretense and given her tent to Pyrrha and Jaune. He was snoring within minutes, but she lay in the dark for a long time. It had been a while since she'd been able to fall asleep without tossing and turning for hours first.

She poked at her stomach, where a bruise was already starting to form. In hindsight it should have been obvious. Of _course _he wouldn't want to listen to her after she'd interrupted him twice during the battle at Shade. Not that she regretted it, of course, but... it stung. She sat up, running her thumbs gently over her burned palms. Then she moved towards the flap as silently as she could. The zipper caught. There was a sharp noise, and Jaune stirred.

"Hm... Pyrrha?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"'Sokay." He rubbed his eyes. "I said you could."

"Go back to sleep."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm..." She hovered for a moment on the verge of saying, 'fine.' Then her shoulders slumped. "Crucible hates me."

"He hates everyone."

"I know."

"...Pyrrha?" There was a rustle as Jaune sat up. "What's wrong?"

She wiped at her eyes. "It's nothing. I just... miss him."

A long moment passed in near silence, except for the occasional sniffle.

"I want to fix it," Jaune said softly, "but I can't, so... do you want a hug?"

"I do."

He wrapped an arm around her and squeezed lightly. "Crucible's just grumpy that you beat him in a fight," he decided. She smiled into his shoulder.

"I definitely didn't."

"Let's agree to disagree."

Pyrrha mumbled a sleepy assent, her eyes sliding shut. She could feel his heartbeat.


	40. Seeds of Doubt

**Hello again, and happy Friday! Today we've got Ragnar and Oscar working on their communication skills, and Glacier finding an interesting smell.**

* * *

**40\. Seeds of Doubt**

* * *

The thing about being an ex-White Fang member was that you had a really hard time convincing yourself that you were just being paranoid.

Maybe she was just jumpy because of all the smoke Crucible had caused, but she didn't think so. Raven had decided to move camp again the next morning, even though they'd been planning to stay in one place and take the opportunity to rest, and even Cinder had said that there probably hadn't been anyone around to see it. They were deep in the forest north of Vacuo, and there were enough Grimm in the area that no one lived there. No one had seen a council dragon in days. They were _fine._

And yet... she still felt like she was being watched. There hadn't even been a noise, except for the usual night sounds—singing insects, rustling leaves, the occasional owl.

A cool gust of wind ruffled her hair, making the fur on her ears stand on end. The sky was almost cloudless. This far from Vacuo, it looked like there were more stars than there were gaps between them—but in between the trees, even she couldn't see very far.

Her ears strained forward. There was a sense of foreboding, of anticipation. An instant where she was sure someone was about to step forward...

"You're still awake."

She leaped off the log she was sitting on, whirling in midair and staggering as she landed. Weiss was behind her, looking slightly startled. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." Blake glanced back into the woods over her shoulder, but the feeling of anticipation was gone. "Just jumpy. Obviously. What are you doing up?"

"Obsessing. Mind if I join you?"

She smiled. "Please do."

The log wasn't that long, and Blake shifted instinctively to make room. Weiss craned her neck upward. "I'd never seen so many stars before our first night out here."

"They were what I missed most at Beacon."

The silence that followed was pleasant, but Blake was hyperaware of how little space there was. To ease the strange tension she asked, "What about?"

"Hm?"

"You said you were obsessing."

"Right, that. I was thinking about Shade."

"Oh."

"...I ruined the mood, didn't I?"

"No." Another light breeze made Blake shiver and rub her hands together. "I'm the one who asked."

"Yes, well. I'm just thinking myself in circles at this point."

"Yeah. Me too."

"I mean, I know we should be fighting the council. And _I _certainly don't have any better ideas on how to do it."

"But you still don't like it."

Weiss fell into an uncharacteristic slump, her elbows on her knees. "No."

"Neither do I." The doubt kept niggling at her, no matter how many times she tried to brush it aside. Hell, brushing it aside just made it _worse._ It was the sort of thing she'd been desperate to ignore in the White Fang. "I think the frustrating thing is that I can't point to what's bothering me. It just feels like Cinder is... too angry. Too focused on punishing the council, rather than protecting the dragons. Like she's in this for revenge first, anything else second."

As she finished, Blake realized that Weiss was staring at her. "What?"

A smirk. "I just think she's a manipulative bitch, but I suppose that works too."

* * *

Oscar hitched his pack up his shoulders. His aunt had given to him, after about an hour of trying to convince him not to go. There was food inside, but he hadn't really needed it. Ragnar was good at sniffing out berries and hunting to feed them both. The journey had been much smoother than Oscar had expected—there was only one small problem.

"So... where are we going, exactly?"

"Rrae."

This answer was just as unhelpful as it had been the last few times Oscar had asked. He was sure a real rider would be able to figure it out, but so far he'd only managed to determine that Ragnar was not talking about Raybon, a nearby village, and that he hadn't meant 'hay' or a 'bay.'

"A ray of what?" he asked.

The dragon tilted his head to one side. "Rae. Rroh-guh."

"Sorry. I still don't understand."

A shrug. "Buh-kunn."

"...Bacon?"

Ragnar snorted, and made the low huffing sound Oscar had learned was laughter.

"Oh!" He smacked a hand against his forehead. _Obviously_ Ragnar was talking about the school where he'd spent most of his life. "Beacon?"

"Gud."

"Is that where..." Oscar trailed off, not wanting to hit on an unpleasant memory. Judging by the way Ragnar tensed, he'd failed. "Do you think the students might be there?"

"Nno." Ragnar rumbled uncertainly. Trying to think of a way to communicate what he was thinking to Oscar. "Rae nuh... near."

"I don't understand."

A frustrated snort. "Find... tuh. Truh... aye... buh."

"Um..." Oscar wracked his brain. "You want to find something."

"Rrae. Rrow-guh."

He felt so _slow_. "Ray... is a rogue?"

"Gud. Go near Buh-kunn. Find Rrae. Find young."

"Ray is _near _Beacon, and... that's where the students are?"

Ragnar nodded, and licked his forehead. Oscar's hair was sticking up in every direction, and had been for several days now. He grinned. "I got there eventually."

"Scarr gud."

He scratched at the base of Ragnar's neck, feeling the responding purr roll through his entire body. Talking to the old dragon was a slow thing. They hadn't spent their whole lives together, hadn't learned and played and fought together. They didn't understand each other, not yet. But they were getting better.

* * *

Notes like clear water, rippling under a layer of ice. For an instant it was so perfect he could see blue eyes peering at him through the hole in the wall—and an echo of sunlight shining through a pair of wings, turning them a pale lavender. Glacier faltered, his ears twitching. Then he huffed in frustration.

"What _is _that song?" the little one asked. Breathless, like he'd been running, but he'd only been sitting on Glacier's back.

He whistled again, but it was no good. The melody had slipped away. Glacier flicked his tail, uprooting a small bush, and slunk between two trees. He'd been searching a long time now, and he hadn't found either of the small ones. Just deer and rabbits... and sometimes monsters. They were horrible things, but most of them were small and fragile and died when he hit them with his claws.

The small one scratched the back of his neck. He twisted his head around and nuzzled the boy's chest. _Good..._

Then the wind changed and he stiffened, raising his head and sniffing the air. Not the small Jacques' smell. It smelled like... like...

A silver hatchling with deep blue eyes, tripping over his own tail and pretending it had never happened. He'd belonged to one of the small ones, the steely one. And before that... snow white wings, lavender in the light.

This smell wasn't the same, but he knew instinctively what it was. _Dragons. _Not like him or Steele or Snowflake. He smelled ash and dirt, salt and clean air. Glacier sprinted towards it, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his tail wagging. The wind shifted again, carrying the smell away from him, but he kept following.

"Glacier!" the small Jacques yelped. Glacier barked at him, relishing the run, his excitement smothering every other thought. The others had gone away somewhere, and the steely one had come back with a hatchling. Maybe this was where they had gone.

As he ran, his anticipation ebbed. The smell was gone. He breathed in sharp pants. His chest hurt. As hatchlings, he and Snowflake had chased each other around the grounds for hours. There had been an old man with a scarf...

He collapsed onto his belly, breathing hard. Why did it hurt so much, now? He missed the good ache, the deep satisfaction of collapsing in a heap with Snowflake, kicking snow into the air. But the old man had disappeared, and then there were stables and rules and vast white sheets of undisturbed snow. Glacier tossed his head. He kept moving in the same direction, his nose lifted to catch another whiff, but it didn't come. The last day pulled at his thoughts. He tried to sing...

His sister sang in her stall while he sat, enraptured, staring at the gap between door and ceiling. The doors didn't open anymore. Strange smells invaded the barn. Stranger sounds. Loud. Sharp. One of the big needles.

The singing stopped.

"Glacier?"

Hands on his face, drawing it closer. Scratching just above his eyes, under his chin, at the corner of his jaws. Small, gentle hands... but not the ones he wanted. Even this hurt, now.

Glacier snapped up the fuzzy hood, lifting the small Jacques onto his back. His sides were still heaving. He started to run, ignoring the stabbing feeling in his chest. He needed to find the smell. If he found the smell, he would find the small ones. Then it would be better.

* * *

Staying hidden wasn't usually difficult for Ilia. Between her natural camouflage and her night vision, she could keep to the darkest shadows and blend in perfectly. She'd learned to stay perfectly still. To focus and keep a handle on herself, so that she didn't change color by accident. But sometimes, the person you were trying to follow was just _that_ alert.

For the fourth time in as many minutes, Blake stiffened, her ears twitching. Ilia had made one misstep, brushing against a few leaves. A light rustling noise that anyone else would have assumed was just the wind. Even now there were other sounds just like it all around her, where birds and small animals were moving around. Blake looked like she was ready for a horde of Grimm to burst out of the undergrowth.

Ilia crouched behind a few bushes. She hardly dared to _breathe. _It was quiet, and Blake was alone. This would be the perfect time to step out of the shadows and say... what?

Blake started to relax again, though she kept a wary eye on the woods. Dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, ears swiveled to catch every sound, and one knee was drawn up to her chest. It hit Ilia just as hard now as it had the night she'd visited Brand. She watched her watch the stars, her heart beating in her throat.

She wouldn't lie. She couldn't. It was just a matter of how much of the truth she told. And the look on Blake's face as she tilted it back towards the sky... soft. Content.

_All of it._

Ilia inhaled sharply. Blake snapped her head back down, scanning the trees with her eyes narrowed. All it would take now was standing up and removing her mask.

In the instant she started to get up, she was sure that Blake knew. Her eyes flickered over the woods, coming to a stop while she was looking almost directly at her. A weight seemed to slip off Ilia's shoulders.

"You're still awake."

Ilia sank back to the ground in an instant with her hand clamped over her own mouth, fighting to keep her skin charcoal grey. A girl dropped down on the other side of the log Blake was sitting on, so that their shoulders were almost touching. The Schnee.

They talked. Ilia stayed frozen in the bush, waiting. Any minute now, Blake would escape the company of the heiress and walk away. Ilia would follow and, when she was alone, she'd explain. And... Blake would too. Whatever else happened, they could finally talk to one another again—even if it was just this once.

They talked about the stars. Ilia glanced up, then quickly looked away.

They talked about Cinder. Ilia smirked, thinking of how livid Sienna would be if she knew how unnecessary the mission was. Then again, it seemed like Blake was right on the edge of abandoning this cause—and she knew from experience that it didn't take much of a nudge, after that.

And finally, they lapsed into silence.

"So." The Schnee sat up a little straighter. "What do we do?"

"I don't know."

"Helpful."

Blake smiled and lightly elbowed her arm. "Why are you asking me?" The smile faded. "I'm not very good at choosing sides." Ilia gritted her teeth.

"What are you talking about?"

"Um... you do remember that, historically—"

"Yes, I remember, _thank you._ When..." She glanced around, then continued, choosing her words carefully. "When a situation like this came up before, you made the right choice. Why wouldn't I want your opinion right now?"

"Oh. Thank you?" Blake shifted on the log. "I'd like to hear your opinion, too."

A scoff. "You thought that was optional?"

There was a smile in Blake's voice as she said, "I was trying to be polite."

"Were you? Or were you dodging the question?"

"...Dodging." Blake leaned back, taking another long look at the stars. "I think... there are things that feel _familiar._ But it's too early to tell. So... we keep our eyes open. Talk as much as we can."

"Obviously."

Ilia bristled at her tone, but Blake just chuckled. "Yeah, well... it's good to have the option." She shrugged, trying for nonchalance... but the way her shoulders curled inward told a different story. "I think part of the reason things got so bad last time was that I didn't talk to anyone. I _couldn't _talk to anyone."

_Blake..._

"Blake..."

_Damn it!_

"There was no way of knowing who might say something to him, so I just... didn't talk about it. For all I know half of them wanted out but were too afraid to say anything."

_You could have talked to _me!

"You did everything you could."

"But I _didn't!"_ Blake shot to her feet, pacing back and forth. "I got scared and I ran away. I know I couldn't have changed his mind, but I never even _tried _to help anyone else! And now Ilia is still mixed up with them, and Brand was stuck with him for almost a _year, _and—"

"Blake, stop."

"—And now you're asking me for advice like I haven't messed it up _every time—"_

_"Stop."_ The Schnee grabbed Blake by the shoulders. "You're spiraling."

Silence, except for Blake's harsh breathing. Ilia's fingernails bit into her palms.

"Things are different this time. You're not alone."

"Yeah. I know." A shaky sigh. "That was what I was trying to say. I feel like last time it was just me making all the decisions, and I... well, I fucked it up."

"Seriously. Stop that."

"Why? It's the truth."

One hand came down on Blake's upper arm. Ilia felt like ants were crawling under her skin as it itched to turn a vibrant green.

"You keep doubting yourself. You're..." She paused, as if struggling to get the words out. "You're a good person. You're smart, and you have good instincts. And yes, you can still make mistakes, but it's _dangerous _to believe someone else's opinion is always better than your own." She glanced at the ground. "People take advantage."

"It's also dangerous to ignore everyone else when they're telling you that you're wrong."

"Then why do you keep ignoring your friends when we tell you it wasn't your fault?" She waved a hand. "Never mind. That's not my point, anyway. I trust... your judgment. And I hope you'll try to trust it, too."

Blake made a few jumbled attempts to respond. Then, finally, "I trust your judgment too."

The Schnee stood up abruptly and backed up a step. "I'm going to bed. We'll keep talking about what we're doing. All of us."

"Okay? Weiss, what—"

"Good!" She broke into a full retreat, while Blake watched with her back to Ilia.

When, several minutes later, she turned towards the forest again, there was a bemused look on her face. She was finally alone... and Ilia finally knew what to say.

"Blake."

Instantly she was tensed, her ears pinned back, a hand in her pocket. Going for her scroll.

"Wait!" Ilia hissed. "It's just me!" She turned a soothing blue as she stepped out from behind her bush. "I need to talk to you."

Blake glanced over her shoulder, then followed her further into the trees. "How much of that did you hear?"

In her pocket, her hand clenched into a fist. "Hear what? You were just standing there."

"Oh." Blake's shoulders slumped in relief. "Then... what is it?"

"A trade." Ilia folded her arms across her chest. "I have information I can give you, but first... I want to know why you left."

She stiffened. "I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't keep hurting dragons, and... wait, how did you even _find _us?!"

"I'll tell you if you answer my question." Unbidden, she felt her skin turn orange.

"I did."

"It wasn't just about the dragons—don't lie, I know Adam had something to do with it." She breathed in. "But what I really want to know is... why didn't you talk to me, first?"

Blake's eyes widened. "Ilia, if you're having second thoughts—"

"Answer the question!"

"...I was scared."

"Of _me?"_ Ilia spread her hands. "Blake, I'd _never—"_

"I know you wouldn't. Not on purpose. But..." She hunched her shoulders. "You didn't exactly know... how he could get."

A rock dropped into the pit of her stomach.

"I didn't tell you. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't know what would happen if someone told him, or just _mentioned _something where he could hear."

_A tungsten chain._

"Did you kill him?"

Blake recoiled. "What? No!" She squeezed her eyes shut. "No. He showed up at Beacon. Threatened me, and... a friend of mine. The dragons protected us."

"...Okay." Ilia nodded slowly. "I think I understand."

"You do?" A hopeful look dawned on Blake's face. Ilia felt sick.

"You were scared. You didn't think you could trust anyone."

"I've been trying to work on that."

_I noticed._

"Fine." Ilia turned her head, so that she was staring at the trunk of a tree instead. "Hazel's been traveling with us. You remember him?"

"He sat with Brand."

"Yeah. I overheard him on the phone. He screwed up, dropped a name."

"Cinder," Blake spat, like it was a curse.

"How'd you know?"

She grimaced. "A bad feeling." Then, her expression turned horrified. "Did she tell you where to find us?"

"Sienna is getting updates from Cinder. Nothing specific, just the general area. Once I was close I just waited until I saw pit dragons."

"Sienna?" She had been a friend of Blake's parents before the Fang changed leadership. She'd liked her, too.

"Someone had to step up, with him gone."

Blake glanced over her shoulder again. Probably itching to share the news with her friends. "Look, Ilia, if you—"

"Save it." Ilia backed up a few paces, blending into the trees. "I'm here because... because I owe you. But I'm _not _leaving the Fang."

"Wait!"

She dashed away. Blake tried to follow, but before long it got too dark for even a faunus to see very well, and she lost track of her. Ilia stayed perched in a tree for several minutes, until Blake eventually gave up and walked back towards the camp.

It was the truth. Not all of it, no... but the whole story was something you told the ones you trusted. Ilia had Justice. That would have to be enough.

* * *

**Random headcanon: Ilia didn't naturally have a 'default' color scheme. When she was a kid she'd be constantly shifting to show emotion, or to mimic whatever she was looking at. But after she started passing as human and had to stick to one pattern all the time, she got used to it and started to stay like that.**


	41. A Gentle Rain

**Hello there! This chapter, everyone needs to have A Talk. Also, a certain hatchling finds that a door guard makes things a lot more difficult.**

* * *

**41\. A Gentle Rain**

* * *

Pyrrha was right on the edge of sleep. She could feel it—the dark, in-between space where her thoughts blurred and her body faded away. A brief instant where she was still conscious, but everything was dulled. Peaceful.

The zipper of their tent opened. She jolted awake, coming face to face with Jaune. He was sitting up. "I told you to stop waiting for me to fall asleep!"

"I was just—Blake?" She was leaning in through the tent flap, her ears flat against her skull. "What the _heck?"_

"I need to talk to everyone." She saw his glare and winced. "Trust me, I wouldn't have woken her up if it wasn't important. Meet us in the woods."

Then she retreated. Pyrrha could hear hushed voices near where Ren and Nora's tent was.

"You told them not to wake me up?"

"Not exactly. It's just... we know it's hard for you to get back to sleep, so we try not to if we can avoid it."

"You don't need to do that."

"I know." He stood up, offering a hand. "But since there's only so much we can do about the big stuff, we wanna help with the little stuff. Okay?"

"...Alright."

They snuck into the woods a few at a time, leaving their dragons where they slept. Weiss and Yang were already waiting by the time they got there, and before long they were all there.

All fifteen of them. Twelve students, two professors, and...

"You brought Emerald?!" Weiss hissed.

Ruby leaned back a few inches. "Um... well, Blake said we were all meeting, so...?"

Weiss glanced at Blake. "Well?"

She shrugged. "It's... fine. Probably. But... sorry about this." Then she looked at Yang. "Can you?"

"What?" Yang glanced uncertainly at Emerald. "Like...?"

"Just make sure she can't leave."

_"What?"_ Emerald tried to back away.

Yang slung an arm around her shoulders. "Okay then. Do you wanna explain what we're all doing out here? Because this is getting _really_ cloak and dagger."

"You—what the fuck are you doing?" Emerald moved to bolt, only to end up in a headlock. Yang released her a moment later, though she kept a loose grip on her shoulder.

"Miss Belladonna." Professor Goodwitch prompted.

Blake took a deep breath, then let it out. "An old friend of mine told me that Cinder is working with the White Fang."

Weiss reacted first, and loudest. "She _what?!"_

"Why are we talking about this in front of Emerald?" Neptune demanded, jabbing a finger at her.

Ruby slapped at it. "Hey!"

Emerald shifted in Yang's grip. "It's fine, Ruby. I'm curious about that myself."

"If worst comes to worst... knock her out?" Sun suggested, grinning sheepishly.

"What? No!" Ruby waved her arms frantically. "We are not doing that!"

"You're the one who brought her!" Scarlet said.

"Guys!" Yang put up the hand that wasn't restraining Emerald. "Let's not cross that bridge unless we come to it, okay?"

"Oh, you'll fucking come to it alright you—"

"Don't yell at my sister!" Ruby pleaded.

"Your sister just put me in a headlock!"

"But—"

"Enough." Professor Goodwitch slashed her hand through the air in a cutting gesture.

"Let us ask questions rather than starting arguments," Professor Port suggested.

Weiss kept her attention fixed on Blake. "When you say that Cinder is working for the White Fang... what does that mean, exactly?"

"Not for. With. I don't know any details, but..." Blake glanced at Emerald. "That injection equipment from Shade went to whoever is hatching eggs for Cinder." Her jaw clenched. "And I remember being surprised that the Fang had managed to scrounge up so much for their lab, so they've probably gotten supplies from her before."

Ruby was the first to speak. "Is that true?"

Emerald flicked her eyes from one face to another, like a cornered rat—but she didn't look at Ruby once. "It's more complicated than that."

"This whole time."

Pyrrha's voice came out oddly flat. Everyone turned to stare at her—she could see the naked concern on their faces.

"There wasn't a better—"

"Just answer the question!" Weiss snapped.

"Yes, but—"

"This whole time." Pyrrha could hear her heartbeat roaring in her ears. Something in her tone made Emerald's eyes go wide. "While Haven was rebelling. While we were destroying Shade. While you were _stirring things up _at Beacon."

Jaune grabbed her hand. Yang took a step back, Emerald almost tripping over herself to create some distance. "Just let me explain!"

"No!"

"Pyrrha—" Nora said softly. Ren put a hand on her shoulder. Jaune's fingers tangled with hers and squeezed.

_"No!"_ She tore herself away. "Everything that happened, everything we _lost, _it was supposed to be part of a plan to stop the council! And now we find out we sacrificed _all that_ so that Cinder could be the one experimenting on them! Throwing their lives away!"

She raised a hand. Yang's grip had slackened, but Emerald was so stunned that she didn't try to run. She just stood there, staring, as Pyrrha made a fist—

"Wait!"

Ruby jumped between them, her hands up. "This is bad. It's _bad._ But please, just let her talk first?"

It was like a bucket of water had been dumped over her head. Pyrrha stumbled back. There was an urge to apologize, and she squashed it. She stood stiffly, watching Emerald.

"Fine," she gritted out.

* * *

Yang could feel Emerald shaking as she tried to find words. She relaxed her grip a little—though it was about to get a whole lot tighter if her explanation wasn't _really _good.

Emerald swallowed hard. "Yes. We worked with the White Fang. But Cinder didn't _want _to. There aren't that many of us, not enough to run a lab _and _fight the council. They already had enough manpower, and we had all the equipment they'd need, so..."

"I've seen that lab," Blake said flatly. "It's disgusting."

"She's been trying to change it! First she got them to be systematic, so they wouldn't keep trying things more than once. Then she made sure they had tape to put on after injections, so there wouldn't be so many infections—"

Weiss' lip curled. "I suppose she thought they would be more useful to her if they worked efficiently."

"It wasn't about that, but they wouldn't _listen _if she just said that it would be better for the dragonets! They don't care, you know they don't care, but Cinder was making things better."

Blake grimaced when Emerald looked at her. "Damn it."

Yang squeezed Emerald's arm. Not hard—just a reminder that running away wasn't an option. "Blake? Are you okay?"

"My friend let something else slip. There's been a change in leadership since... well, you know." A collective wince. "She said Sienna is in charge now, and she's... a lot more likely to listen to reason. So Emerald might be telling the truth."

"I didn't know about the leadership change," Emerald admitted, "but I haven't really been involved in that side of things. And Cinder mentioned that she's been making a lot more progress with the White Fang recently."

Silence. They exchanged glances. Some, like Sun, seemed hopeful, while others were more dubious. Weiss and Professor Goodwitch both looked skeptical, and Pyrrha was still furious.

"I trust her," Ruby said softly. "We've seen her with Strike. She loves her. So... she'd want to do as little harm as possible, right?"

"Maybe," Blake admitted. "But we're in enough danger without 'maybes'."

"Okay." Ruby turned to Emerald. "How about this? We agree to stay—for now!" she added quickly, when Pyrrha opened her mouth to argue. "But no more lies. No more hiding stuff. And no more surprise skeletons in Cinder's closet. Otherwise we're going to leave, and you're not going to stop us."

Emerald didn't speak for a moment. Then, finally, "...Okay."

"And you're _not _telling Cinder we had this conversation," Blake added.

"Um." Scarlet raised a hand. "Are we just going to trust that she'll do that?"

"Yes." Ruby flashed Emerald a grin. "Because she's our friend. And if she does tell her, we run."

"What if Cinder decides to attack us?" asked Neptune.

Weiss scoffed. "With what army? I doubt the tribe or the pit dragons would side with her. At worst they'd stay out of it." A pause. "Or attack everyone indiscriminately. Either way, it would just be stupid for Cinder to risk that."

She glanced at their professors, looking for confirmation. Both nodded.

"Fine," Emerald said, exasperated. "Any other demands while you're holding me hostage?"

Yang had a sudden flash of inspiration. "Oh! See if you can get Cinder to show us—"

Weiss made a violent slashing gesture across her throat, angled so that Emerald wouldn't see. Yang stumbled a bit as she changed what she'd been about to say. "—the, uh, formulas that you found. They might have failure rates or something that we could check."

"They don't, and it'd make her suspicious if I asked."

"Okay." Yang forced a smile. "Worth a shot."

"Is everyone good?" Ruby asked.

"Yes," Weiss said, briefly meeting Yang's eyes and mouthing, _"Thank you."_

"Cool. I'll walk Emerald back to camp."

"Sleep tight, guys!" Yang released Emerald and tossed her a wink. "It was nice talking to you."

"Fuck you."

Ruby shot her a hurt look. "Hey! Leave Yang alone."

Emerald's grumbling eventually faded into the distance.

"So." Yang looked expectantly at Weiss. "What the hell was that about?"

"Blake? Do you think you could get in touch with Ilia again?"

"Maybe. Why—_oh."_

"Care to share with the class?" Yang prompted.

"You were going to ask her to get Cinder to show us the White Fang lab, right?" Weiss asked.

"Yeah."

"It might be better to ask Ilia to do that," Blake explained, "so that Cinder won't have a chance to cover anything up."

"...Oh."

Sun put a hand on his forehead and groaned dramatically. "That's enough spy crap at three in the morning. I'm going to sleep."

Yang stuck close by Blake and Weiss until they found Ruby sitting by their tents. "I really think she's telling the truth."

Blake sighed. "Are you sure that isn't because it's Emerald?"

"I mean, it is a little. She cares about dragons, so doesn't it mean something if she trusts Cinder?"

"It might mean Cinder is fooling Emerald, too," said Weiss. "She lied to Blake, and none of us noticed a thing."

Yang groaned and plopped herself down beside her sister. "I don't know what to think anymore."

"I wish she was more honest about things," Ruby admitted, "but... it's not just Emerald that likes her. Strike does, too. I've seen them together. Cinder would have to want to do as little harm as she could, right?"

* * *

The death smell was strong again.

She padded silently between the trees, keeping thick undergrowth between her and the faunus. They could see when it was dark. Sometimes they had hidden claws. Sticky webs. Sharp steel.

But now she knew that the fire had worked. The death smell had almost gone away for a while, and now it was back. So she had to make it stop again. She crept around the evil place, sniffing, tensing as the smell of faunus was mixed in. She recognized the faceless man. And, when she poked her head out from behind a bush, she saw him.

Bad. Very bad.

She shivered. He was standing in front of the entrance to the tent with his arms folded across his chest. When she was smaller he had picked her up and let her ride on his shoulder as he walked, while she sunk her claws into his shirt and flared her wings. Part of her was still not convinced that it was possible to fly any higher.

Could she fight him? She tested her bad leg and hissed. _Not now._ Probably not for a long time. If she were as big as Justice... but she wasn't. And if she was...

He didn't like her hurting the faunus, even when they tried to hurt her first. He said that it wasn't their fault, that there were things called humans who made it this way. They sounded made up. Sienna had talked about a lot of monsters, and there had never been any in the woods. Maybe she'd made all of it up—the humans and the Grimm, big cities and little villages, sea and snow and the island of Menagerie. Maybe this was the whole world, this forest and the faunus that lived there, this place where she was not welcome. She could find out... but only if she ignored the tent that smelled of death.

She tossed her head. This was stupid, anyway. Justice was a liar. He said that if she didn't hurt anyone he'd visit her, but she hadn't seen him since. She had started pacing around the camp at night, watching. It was bad, dangerous—both times they'd almost caught her, it had been because she got too close. She couldn't stop.

At night she dreamed strange, feverish dreams, and when she woke she put her paws over her nose and whimpered for Sienna. The only thing that brought her back to herself was to sneak close to the evil place, to smell and to feel and to _remember._

* * *

Freya woke with a yelp when Nora tapped her nose. It was dark outside, and for a moment all she could do was blink in helpless confusion. Had she slept through the whole day? She was still so tired...

"Sorry, girl," Nora whispered. "But we gotta talk!"

Oh. It was still the same night.

Freya rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes. Nora groaned. "Okay, okay! I'll make sure you get to sleep later. Deal?"

Reluctantly, she dragged herself to her feet and padded after Nora. Ao Guang and Twiggy joined them a moment later, and soon she and her siblings and their humans were all huddled together in the forest.

Jaune explained. Ren clarified a few details. Nora waved her arms wildly for emphasis... and Pyrrha sat in stony silence.

Guang barked anxiously. "Does this mean we have to run away again?"

"They said we're going to wait until we know more," Freya said. "Maybe Blake's friend was lying."

"I bet she was. Strike is nice."

"So is Phoenix. Raven still isn't."

"But... Raven wouldn't hurt hatchlings."

Freya turned to Twiggy, to see what she was thinking about all this, but she was watching Pyrrha. Jaune noticed at the same time.

"Hey," he said, putting an arm around Pyrrha's shoulders. "Are you okay?"

"Not really."

Twiggy purred in her ear.

"This is... a lot to take in," Ren agreed.

"It's not that." Pyrrha's shoulders slumped. "I'm just... tired of not knowing who to trust."

There was a moment of fraught silence. Then, Twiggy pounced.

Pyrrha yelped, landing on her back with the dragon licking her face. Jaune went down with her, laughing and wrapping both arms around her. "I mean, come _on," _Nora said, plopping down next to her and hugging her other side. "We're right here."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean—!"

Ren sat next to Nora and took Pyrrha's hand. "We know."

Then Guang nuzzled at her hair, and for the first time in days Freya found enough energy to jump on top of all of them. Soon they fell into an enormous, affectionate heap, with Pyrrha struggling to breathe between giggles.

_Alright,_ Freya decided, as she shoved her head under Nora's arm. _This was worth waking up for._

* * *

Emerald told herself it wasn't safe to do it that same night. Then she told herself it would be better to wait until Raven wasn't around. When they finally split off from the Branwen tribe and made for Cinder's base of operations, and she caught herself thinking that maybe it would be best to do it once they were safely inside...

No. _Cinder _saved her. _Cinder _made her everything she was. _Cinder_ deserved her loyalty.

If anyone had noticed her slipping into Cinder's tent, she would have told them she was going to look for the formulas she'd found, and see if she could slip one out to show them. None of them did.

Rain pattered against the canvas as she walked in with her heart in her throat. Cinder was sitting on a straw mat, a map spread out in front of her. Probably plotting their route. She glanced up as Emerald entered, her eyes flashing dangerously.

"I don't remember asking you to come in here."

"You didn't." Emerald's mouth was dry. "There's a problem."

"Your instructions recently have been very simple," Cinder snapped. "I hope there hasn't been another _failure."_

"No! No, it's not that. I found out about something."

"Well? What is it?"

It took a moment to force the first words out. Once she did, the rest tumbled from her in a rush. Ruby waking her up in the middle of the night. The woods. Blake's accusation. She left nothing out. Nothing except for the fact that she'd known for three days, now.

"I see."

Emerald tried to be discreet as she wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts. She had a horrible feeling that she knew what her next orders would be. They needed people loyal to the cause, not those who were too weak to do what had to be done. She'd send them away. They'd be enemies. Emerald would have to—

"I suspected it would take some time for them to understand the kinds of sacrifices that must be made," Cinder said mildly. "I'll have to be sure to give them that time."

Emerald almost blurted aloud, _'What?'_ but stopped herself. "What do you want me to do?" she asked instead, trying not to show her relief.

Cinder hummed. "Nothing for now. I'll need to rethink a few things."

"Right." Emerald bowed her head and moved to leave.

"Oh, and Emerald?" She froze, paralyzed by the small, approving smile Cinder was giving her. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

Emerald struggled to keep her face neutral as she said, "Of course." The grin took over her face the instant she was out of sight, and stayed there long after she'd fallen asleep in her own tent. It had been a long time since Cinder given her one of those smiles.

The memory stayed with her until the morning came. Those moments were always like that—disappearing as soon as daylight touched them. And, in its absence, the guilt finally swamped her.

_They'll understand,_ she told herself, over and over. Of course they would—Cinder was sure of it.


	42. The New Beacon

**Happy Friday everyone! This chapter, Ragnar takes a bit of a detour, and Tai brings back an important tradition.**

* * *

**42\. The New Beacon**

* * *

Ragnar stopped so suddenly that Oscar almost slid off his back. He looked around, wondering what the dragon had noticed. There was nothing but trees, and a small clearing full of damp leaves.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Rrae."

"They're here?"

"...Nno." Ragnar walked in a circle with his nose to the ground, until he stopped and pawed at a pile of leaves. Underneath was a piece of wood, charred black on one end. "Gone."

"Oh." Oscar slid off his back. "I'm sorry."

Ragnar's tail drooped. He looked forlornly around the empty clearing, as if waiting for the rogue rider he was looking for to pop out of the bushes. "Ssafe," he said finally. "No... nno..."

"Signs of a struggle?" Oscar suggested.

Ragnar bobbed his head. "Ssafe. Gud."

They stood there in silence for a while, listening to the birds. Oscar scratched Ragnar behind the ears. "So," he said finally. "What do we do now?"

"Rrow."

"Um..."

Ragnar let out a sigh that ruffled his hair. "Scarr see."

"This isn't dangerous, is it?"

"Nno. Rrow gud. Find Rae."

Oscar climbed onto the dragon's back, and they set off at their usual slow, ambling pace. That was, until the wind shifted. Ragnar picked up his head and sniffed. Oscar could feel muscles tensing under his legs.

"Ragnar? What's wrong?"

The old dragon turned abruptly, speeding up to a brisk trot. His leg was still healing... Oscar tried to tell him to slow down, but Ragnar ignored him.

"This is the way to Beacon, isn't it."

"Need," Ragnar rumbled. "Need... see..."

"It's not going to help," Oscar told him, to no effect. He sighed, stroking the dragon's back. "Don't get too close, okay? It's dangerous."

"Nno. Sstay 'way."

"Good."

It only took a few hours for them to reach the shadow of Beacon cliffs. Oscar clung to Ragnar's neck as he circled around, clambering up a small path and disappearing into more woods. The campus was in sight now, patches of green lawns peeking through the trees.

"Okay," Oscar whispered. "We've seen. We need to go, now."

Ragnar took another few steps forward, crouching low to stay hidden behind a few bushes. Oscar heard voices. He ducked against the dragon's neck, his heart in his throat. "We have to go! _Please!"_

"—last batch of hatchlings has been healthier," a woman was saying. "That's a good thing, isn't it?"

"I'm just saying it's suspicious," a man replied. "Defects in half the dragons last time, and now Wisteria only culls two?"

"He wouldn't hide them."

"I didn't think Lionheart was sitting on that many traitors, but here we are."

She snorted. "Lionheart wasn't complicit, just stupid."

He made a noise, like he disagreed but didn't want to bother arguing about it. "The old man was, though."

"What tipped you off, genius? Kappa, no! Drop it. _Now."_

"Get a whip," the man suggested. "Keeps their attention better."

Ragnar started to growl low in his throat. Oscar shushed him frantically, tapping on his shoulder in a silent plea to turn around and go.

The woman only laughed. "You obviously never had to deal with a fire dragon before. She'd rip my arm off."

"That's why you teach 'em to respect it when they're smaller. I've got the wind kids using them. It's about showing them consequences, see?"

Ragnar twisted his neck around, grabbing Oscar's collar gently in his teeth and lifting him off his back.

"No!" he hissed, as his feet hit the ground. "You can't, they'll—"

Too late. Ragnar charged out of the bushes, roaring at the top of his lungs.

* * *

"Glacier?"

Whitley tapped the dragon's shoulder. He ignored him. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air, and his sides were heaving with the effort of keeping up his trot.

"Glacier. Where are we going?"

No answer. Not that he expected one, at this point. Glacier wove between trees, jumping over small streams and tramping cheerfully past low-hanging branches that threatened to unseat Whitley. He ducked low against the dragon's back to avoid the worst of it.

Then a bugling roar rolled over them, shaking the ground and sending small animals running for cover. Whitley squeaked and almost fell off. Glacier stopped dead. He stared in the direction the sound had come from for a long moment, his head tilted slightly to one side... and burst into motion. This wasn't a gentle trot anymore—he galloped forward with Whitley clinging desperately to the spines on his back.

A cliff loomed before them. Glacier was panting now, but he raced up a low rise and launched himself into the sky. For a few blissful seconds they were airborne. Then they slammed into the cliff about ten feet from the top, and the dragon clawed and scrabbled at it.

Whitley, meanwhile, hung by both hands from his spines, doing his best to keep the blanket trapped between his knees. Then, finally, Glacier got a paw over the clifftop and heaved. He stayed there for a few seconds, puffing and wheezing. When he finally started moving again, it was at a slow walk.

Without warning, the trees around them vanished. The sky opened up, and they were staring at a wide open field, gently rolling hills, and... was that _Beacon Tower?_

"Let's get out of here," Whitley urged Glacier. "There will be people. Lots of people." One of them was bound to have a scroll he could use... but he wasn't sure they'd be in the mood for helping him after a fully grown dragon charged onto the premises, panicked at the crowds, and caused an international incident.

Whitley wasn't sure why he even bothered, though—Glacier wasn't even looking at him. He was staring off to one side, where... _oh._

Three dragons were fighting. One, an earth dragon, was riderless. The other two, a fire and a wind dragon, were raking it with their claws from either side. It jumped on the fire dragon, pinning it, and swiped its tail at the rider.

Whitley tugged at Glacier's spines. "Come _on!"_

Glacier sniffed the air, then let out a confused whine.

"Yes, they're fighting. Let's go before they notice us!"

Too late. A twig snapped in the woods near them, and before Whitley could do more than yelp there was another boy in front of them, gesturing frantically with both arms.

"You have to help me!" He pointed at the brawling group. "He's going to get himself killed!"

Whitley stared at the dragons for a moment. He still wasn't sure which one the boy was referring to—though he supposed it was probably the riderless one.

"He doesn't listen to _me," _he grumbled, glaring at Glacier, "or we wouldn't be here in the first place."

Without missing a beat, the boy addressed the dragon. "Please... he just lost his rider, and they're—" he glowered at the two humans, one with a whip coiled at his hip. "They're _horrible._ If you could just help him get away—'

He took a step forward. Whitley opened his mouth to warn him, but Glacier had already reared up. He snapped at the boy, who jumped backwards, tripped over a root, and went sprawling. The dragon hissed, flaring his wings to make himself look bigger.

When the boy sat up, Whitley noticed his eyes for the first time—green and gold and brown, and narrowed defiantly. _"Fine," _he said, straightening up. "Don't help me." He marched off across the field... _directly _towards the dragons.

"What are you doing?" Whitley demanded. "Are you trying to get yourself _killed?"_

No response.

"Glacier! Can't you do something?"

No response.

Whitley snarled in frustration. He was getting really _sick _of being ignored.

* * *

_Whips._

The roar was torn from him by years of watching. Years of being helpless to stop the Cardin's of the world, of spending every waking hour with Ozpin doing what little they could to make things better... Only to find that the sanctuary they built together had been turned into _this._

"Get out of the _way!"_ he bellowed, slashing his claws across the face of the fire dragon. She growled at him and heated her scales until he had to rip himself away. On his other side, the wind dragon clawed at him.

He slipped between them. They weren't the enemy. The man with the whip was the enemy. Ragnar slammed a paw into his stomach, sending him spinning end-over-end before he landed in an ungainly heap. He groaned, twitched, then flopped back into the dirt.

The wind dragon shrieked in outrage and leaped onto Ragnar's back. He tore the whip away, catching it in his teeth and chewing it apart. There was more shouting, now, and the other rider reached for a whistle at her hip and blew into it.

_Good,_ he thought. _Let them come._

A flash of movement. Oscar, sprinting towards them. The fire dragon's tail lashed behind her, cutting through the air, heading straight for the boy. Ragnar jumped between them, curling protectively around him. The tail smacked his shoulder. He roared a third time, then grabbed a mouthful of Oscar's shirt and ran.

The wind dragon didn't follow. He was crouched over his rider now, nudging the man's side and licking his face. The fire dragon stopped at the edge of the trees, letting out a last defiant hiss before she retreated.

"Bad," Ragnar said, dropping Oscar on the forest floor. "Bad!"

"What was I supposed to do?" There was a smear of dirt across his cheek from when Ragnar had tackled him. "You promised you wouldn't try and get yourself killed like that!"

Ragnar spat the handle of the whip at his feet.

"I know." Arms around his neck. Warm. "But we have to be smart about this, right? Find, um... Row. Whatever that is."

He whined like a hatchling, craning his neck to look over his shoulder. Oscar was right... but there were riders like that in Beacon. In his _home._ Teaching children to hurt hatchlings.

"We'll do something," Oscar promised. "But we need help, first."

Ragnar's grumble froze in his throat. A pair of blue eyes was watching him. He jumped back, pulling Oscar under his wing. The other dragon poked his head out from behind two trees, sniffing warily.

"Small ones," he said. "You know?"

He smelled... _different._ Ragnar thought of Specter, and realized with a start that this must be an ice dragon. Which meant...

"Glacier?"

A confused blink. "Yes. Glacier here. Small ones where?"

Small ones? Slowly, Ragnar lifted his wing. "This is Oscar."

"Don't care." Glacier stepped forward, revealing a young boy sitting on a blanket on his back. Ragnar's ears perked up. He'd heard about this—the two of them had been taken. And, apparently, they'd escaped.

"Are you trying to get home?" he asked.

It was the wrong thing to say. Glacier coiled up like a spring, his eyes narrowing. Deadly mist billowed between his teeth as he hissed.

"Glacier, stop it!" the boy said, shooting a terrified look at Ragnar. "We'll just be going, now—!"

"What are you even doing out here?" Oscar demanded.

"I could ask _you _the same thing." The child must be a Schnee. Weiss, Winter... Winston? Walter? No, _Whitley._

"Nno," Ragnar said, when Oscar opened his mouth to keep arguing. He put a paw on the boy's head and addressed Glacier. "It's alright. We won't harm you."

"And what were you all fighting about, anyway?" Whitley demanded. "What kind of—"

"Nno talk," Ragnar said. "Calm."

While the boy spluttered, Glacier watched Ragnar with the spines on his neck bristling. "Small ones. Find. Where?"

"There are many small ones," Ragnar said, nudging Oscar with his nose. "Which ones do you mean?"

"Singing one. Steely one." Glacier twisted his head to sniff Whitley. "Small Jacques."

Just like that, everything clicked into place. "I don't know where the steely one is," Ragnar told him, "but I'm looking for the singing one, too. She was one of my students."

Glacier growled, low and threatening.

"I'd _never _harm one of my students. I want to find them all so that I can help them."

"Where?" Glacier's tail began to thrash, uprooting several bushes.

"I don't know yet," Ragnar admitted, "but I know someone who should be able to tell me. Would you like to come with us?"

Glacier paced back and forth in front of Ragnar. He sniffed him, then Oscar, who wisely didn't try to touch him. Then he huffed cool mist into their faces and said, "Yes. We find singing one."

With that settled, the two of them set out with Ragnar in the lead... only for both humans to start protesting immediately.

"What's going on?" Oscar asked. "Who are they?"

"I'm Whitley Schnee, for your information," the other boy said, straightening up haughtily. "And isn't that one of the renegade dragons?"

"...Aren't you supposed to be in Atlas?"

Whitley's ears turned red. "You didn't answer my question!"

Oscar glanced at Ragnar for permission, and he nodded. "This is Ragnar. And, well, we're sort of on the run from the council."

"See, Glacier?" Whitley poked the dragon's shoulder. "They're a couple of ne'er-do-wells." Glacier started to whistle to himself.

"We are not!" Oscar said indignantly.

"Scarr. Calm."

"But—"

"Calm."

Ragnar spent the next few minutes trying, and mostly failing, to figure out how Glacier and Whitley had gone from being kidnapped in Atlas to wandering around in the Emerald forest. All he got was, "Fang bad," and, "No home. Keep small Jacques."

Whitley rounded on Oscar again. "Where are we _going,"_ he demanded, in the tones of someone who had been trying to get an answer to that question for a very long time.

Oscar grinned nervously. "I think... we're looking for a Row."

"...That is completely meaningless."

"It's not _meaningless," _Oscar shot back. "I just... don't know what it means. Yet."

"Rrow find Rrae," Ragnar explained. "Rrae find young."

"Ray is a rogue," Oscar added. "They can help us find some students. I think."

"Gud," Ragnar confirmed.

"Then why is Glacier following you?" Whitley demanded, shooting a frustrated look at the ice dragon. Glacier blinked innocently back at him.

"Ice," said Ragnar.

"Yes, I know," Whitley said impatiently, "He's an ice dragon. But _why—"_

"Nno! Find Ice."

"Well, if he wanted to go _north—!"_

Ragnar gave up. The two humans would figure out what was going on eventually. Probably.

* * *

"Okay!" Tai put his hands on his hips. "Tempest, could you scootch over a little to the left?"

She warbled uncertainly and inched to one side, careful not to erase the circle Qrow had drawn in the dirt with a stick.

"I still say this is ridiculous," Qrow said, even as he gave Salty a gentle nudge to get him centered in his own circle.

"It's... tradition, or something." Tai squinted at the compass in his hand. "Earth is supposed to be north, right?"

"Beats me, I took the combat test."

In the southern circle, York barked expectantly. Tai chuckled. "Yeah, I know. I'll give you an apple when we're done setting up."

Soon Tempest and Salty were both settled into the eastern and western circles, and Qrow had drawn a sloppy plus sign in the middle. "There," he said, dropping the stick. "Tradition."

"It might be important! It's not like _we_ know how it's supposed to work."

"Whatever." Qrow pulled two apples from his pockets. Tai did the same. York wagged his tail when he was fed, accidentally obliterating a quarter of his circle.

"Hey, can you fix that?"

"Fix what?" Qrow pulled his flask from his pocket and tipped his head back.

"Dude, really?"

"What?"

"You can't be drunk when we're meeting our students!"

"I won't be _drunk,"_ Qrow promised. "It's just a sip—"

"Rrow." Salty nudged his back. "Nno."

"Ugh. _Fine."_

"You sound like a whiny teenager," Tai said, snickering.

"You sound like a rickety old man."

"Hey!" Tai put a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I'm a _father, _I have to be the responsible one."

"Tai," Quake rumbled. "Hind 'oo."

Slowly, Tai spun in place. Four teenagers were staring at him. Qrow was struck by a sudden coughing fit, while Tempest greeted them with a polite whistle.

"Uh. Hello there! Students..." Tai ran a hand through his hair and grinned. "Welcome to your sight test."

Qrow stuffed the flask back into his pocket. "Who wants to go first?"

Dead silence. Then one of them raised her hand. "Uh... sure?"

"Great." Tai gestured to the middle of the clearing. "Just stand here, and... the dragons will do the rest!"

She stood between the four of them and turned in a slow circle, staring at the dragons. They stared back. York made a confused rumbling noise and stuck out his neck to sniff her. Tempest and Quake barked at each other, as if conferring. Salty squinted like he was trying to read tiny print on the back of a coupon.

"Gud," Tempest decided. Quake nodded, and Salty made an approving noise. York barked once.

Tai gave her a thumbs-up. "You're in!"

"Oh." She looked around again. "I kind of thought it would feel more..."

"Grand?" Qrow suggested. "Mysterious? Magical?" He wiggled his fingers.

Tai pressed a hand to his face. "Qrow. Please shut up."

"Yeah, yeah. Next!"

A few minutes later, their little council of dragons had approved all four new students. He also noticed that each of them seemed to have a kid they paid more attention to than all the others—Tempest had taken a particular liking to the first girl to speak up.

"Okay!" he said, clapping his hands together. "Everybody, take an apple!"

They did, and stood there looking very confused.

"We had to bribe this fellow," Qrow explained, giving York an affectionate clap on the shoulder. "And that means we've gotta feed all of 'em. So consider this your first lesson in how to, uh..."

"Feed dragons treats?" one boy asked. "I do that all the time at home."

"Yeah, _well,"_ Qrow said, irritated, "We've gotta make sure they like you first before we go around injecting eggs." That, and they still hadn't managed to get their hands on enough injectors. It turned out they weren't legal to own privately, which meant that Qrow had to track them down on the black market. Tai was trying not to think too hard about why he knew how to do that.

He watched with a tiny smile on his face as the first girl approached Tempest, holding out the apple. A small hush fell over the clearing as the students greeted the older dragons, scratching under their chins and petting their necks.

Tai didn't fight the huge smile that spread across his face. "Alright," he declared, putting his hands on his hips. "Welcome to Stark Dragonry."


	43. A Ray of Sunshine

**Hello! I'm back with more dragons, this time with an added bonus of a few new faces, one strangely familiar hat, and the return of an old friend.**

* * *

**43\. A Ray of Sunshine**

* * *

Pit started seeing Grimm the day they arrived at Cinder's base of operations. There weren't many—a few Beowolves and an Ursa that Strike and Pepper demolished with contemptuous ease. He wasn't worried about them, but he felt the shift in their surroundings. They weren't in seldom-traveled woods anymore. This was Grimm territory. No more tiny villages scattered across the landscape. No reason for riders to come out here on missions.

The landscape itself felt wilder. Maybe that was because they had to walk the last few miles, to make it harder for any pursuers to track them. Gentle hills and dappled shade were replaced with rugged foothills, with mountains fading into a blue haze on the horizon. Between the trees a perpetual twilight fell, and in some places thorny brush grew so thickly that they had to carry their riders.

Some of them were having an easier time than others.

"I _hate _this place," Huo seethed, grappling his way through yet another clump of bushes. "Are you sure I can't just—"

"No," Nymph sighed. "You can't set them on fire." Then, quieter, "Not that it's not _tempting..."_

Zircon jumped and hid under Nimbus' wing as a Beowolf howled in the distance. "Wh-why are we walking again?"

Freya slowed to a stop, then plopped down onto her hindquarters and yawned. "I feel like I'm swimming." Next to her, Ao Guang tripped and landed face-first in a clump of flowers. He sneezed.

Strike had already vanished up ahead, moving like she was running across a flat, open field. It was hard not to be bitter about that... until she trotted back to them and said, "We're here."

"What?" Pit looked around. He saw... trees. Rocks. Lots of plants. "Where?"

Strike tossed her head smugly and vanished into the brush. After a lot of huffing and puffing and cursing, they finally squirmed their way into open air. A sheer cliff dropped into a shallow bowl-shaped valley. It was small enough for the massive trees surrounding it to tangle their branches together, making it invisible from the air. A few ugly, boxy wooden buildings were nestled inside, along with one ugly, boxy concrete building with steel shutters over all its windows.

It was... sort of underwhelming, actually. The only sign that it was anything more than an out-of-the-way (and dangerous) vacation spot was the industrial generator chugging away in the center.

"Well?" Cinder prompted, gesturing with one hand. "What are you all waiting for?"

They descended. It was easier than it had looked at first—there was a path carved into the side of the cliff, spiraling down.

"How long have you been building this place?" Blake asked, her head turning this way and that to take it all in.

"This is a recent acquisition. An ally of ours has been working out of the lab here for some time, and he's allowed us to use the facility."

"What ally?" Blake asked suspiciously.

"Ah, Cinder!"

Three figures emerged from behind one of the makeshift buildings. One was a girl, even shorter than Weiss and Nora, with a parasol slung over her shoulder. Another was a man in a bowler hat, with orange hair falling in his face. The third was older, with streaks of grey in his brown hair, and a magnificent spiky mustache. He smiled and dropped into a polite bow. "You've brought quite a few new faces with you, I see."

"This is Doctor Arthur Watts," Cinder said. "He built this lab, and we're hoping he'll be able to start hatching hybrids here soon."

"Delighted." His eyes roved over the group. They were bottle green, and lingered on Pit long enough that his ears started to twitch. "This one is an interesting fellow, isn't he?"

Blake inched closer and put a protective hand on his shoulder. The man was friendly as he wandered over, eyeing Pit's freckles curiously and complimenting his scales, but he still felt uneasy under the scrutiny.

"Wait." Ruby broke the tense moment, squinting at the man in the hat. "Do I know you?"

A pause. Then, slowly, he started to laugh. "Oh, I remember you! You're the little squirt with the dragon twice her age!"

Pit made a confused noise. He wasn't the only one—a few of the riders blurted, "What?" and even Storm cocked her head to one side.

Yang jabbed a finger at him. "You! You robbed our neighbors!"

"Well." He adjusted his hat. "This is awkward."

* * *

Ruby had flown with Tempest first.

Storm shook her head, feeling a twinge of guilt at getting so caught up on one little detail. Yang had ridden Quake before Fang, and _he_ didn't mind. She nuzzled at Ruby's side, purring softly when her rider beamed at her and scratched her under the chin.

"Yang, stop glaring," Ruby said, nudging her sister's arm.

"Sure." She gave him a last, pointed look. "But I'll be watching."

Torchwick smirked and tipped his hat. "Watch all you like. We're on the same side now, remember?"

Before anyone could respond to that, Cinder turned to Watts. "You have it?"

"I do."

A significant look passed between them, and then he withdrew a small object from his coat. It caught the light, and Storm barked in excitement. "'Enny!"

Ruby yelped and held out a hand. "Oh my gosh!" Then she turned to Cinder, looking hurt.

"I didn't want it getting into the council's hands," Cinder said smoothly, before Ruby could even ask. "I would have returned it sooner, but by the time I knew you were on our side it was already with Watts for repair and safekeeping." Behind her, Blake and Weiss glanced at one another, each with one eyebrow raised.

Storm barked again and stuck her nose into Ruby's hand, where the device lay flat against her palm. She giggled. "Okay, okay! Does anyone mind if she puts it on for a second?"

Her tail twitched back and forth as Ruby placed the metal plate on her head. Instantly, she felt herself lower into a defensive stance.

"Combat mode activated."

"Penny, it's okay!" Ruby said quickly.

"Sensors indicated a hostile attack before last shutdown," Penny said. "Defensive measures—"

"Are not necessary," Cinder snapped.

"Deactivate combat mode, please, Penny."

Storm felt another thrill of fear. _It's alright,_ she promised. _Cinder was just making sure the council didn't use you to hurt dragons. They don't understand about you yet._

She relaxed. "Acknowledged."

Watts hummed thoughtfully, pacing a small circle around them. "It seems to have a few bugs."

"Minor ones," Cinder said. "You'll have a chance to test it out in combat soon. Until then, have it detach and I can show you where you'll be staying."

Storm felt a pang. She shifted nervously from paw to paw and said, "No."

Cinder stared at her. "What?"

"No. 'Enny... sad."

Everyone shot her confused looks—everyone except Doctor Watts, whose eyes glinted with curiosity.

"Storm," Cinder said impatiently, "Penny is a machine. She can't feel sad."

"No!" Storm dug in her heels. "No off!"

Ruby patted her side. "I'm sorry Storm, but you can't wear her all the time. How about we take her off for now, and later we can talk for an hour or two?"

Storm felt a rush of relief, and nodded. "Gud. Rroo hold. _Rroo."_

"Um...?" Ruby glanced at Cinder, but it was Watts who spoke—prompting a scowl from her at being interrupted.

"She might as well keep it, it's useless to anyone else."

_Useless._

"Penny, detach."

"Acknowledged."

When Ruby moved to store the plate in her pack, Storm whined and fretted until she tucked it safely under her cape.

They moved on, Doctor Watts gesturing to each building as they passed it and pointing to a few small cabins where they could sleep. Only sometimes his green eyes lingered on Pit, or Storm, or the spot where Penny rested. Storm waited until everyone else was distracted by the tour. He glanced at her again, smiling the same friendly smile. She met his eyes and bared her teeth in a silent hiss.

* * *

"Fascinating coloration."

Footsteps circled around Rudder, moving slowly. He twisted his neck to see what Doctor Watts was doing. Mercury stood with him, rubbing soothing circles into his shoulder. "Yeah," he said, "no shit."

Emerald and Jade were with them, too, as were Cinder and Strike. Now that the others were all settled in—crammed in, really, the cabins weren't that big—Watts had asked to meet with them in his lab.

The man stopped directly in front of Rudder, examining his face. "And his vision is unimpaired?"

Rudder whined as the doctor moved his fingers close to his eyes, clucking his tongue approvingly when he followed their movement.

"He can see _fine."_

Watts tutted. "Not a very polite young man, are you?"

Mercury made a rude gesture. Before it could turn into an argument, Cinder cleared her throat. "Have you started injecting the eggs yet?"

"Naturally." He pushed his glasses a little further up his nose, squinting into Rudder's ear. "I see you've finally gotten tired of waiting for the animals."

Cinder grimaced. "Something's wrong over there."

"I don't know what you expected."

"The White Fang produced promising results, up until recently. Sabotage, according to Sienna."

Watts snorted. "Let a monkey bang on a typewriter long enough, it'll eventually give you a sonnet." Then, to Rudder, "Keep still." He shuffled his paws as the doctor gently examined his gills. "Why you chose to go to those fanatics in the first place is a mystery to me."

Behind his back, Cinder's lip curled. "More degrees of separation," she said sweetly. "What do you think people are more likely to believe? That the White Fang acted on their own... or that a single disgraced scientist somehow found the funding for all this?"

At the word _disgraced, _the doctor's hands—which had been tracing his neck—twitched violently. Rudder squirmed in place. "Don't move."

"What are you doing?" Mercury snapped, exasperated.

"Checking up. Open." Rudder did, and the doctor squinted at his teeth. "He's quite healthy."

"Gud?" Rudder asked.

Mercury scowled at Watts. "Yeah, I _know."_

"No defects? Temperamental issues, learning problems, difficulty speaking?"

"He just talked to you, idiot."

Watts' eyes flashed. "Very healthy. Cinder, I'll cut to the chase. You're playing with fire, bringing so many of those children into this at once."

"I'm aware of that."

"And you're certain of their loyalty?"

She smiled. "Yes."

The doctor scoffed, even as he directed Rudder to spread a wing. "Please. They clearly don't trust you. This is _my _lab, you'll remember, and I did _not _sign off on—"

"You are being compensated for hatching hybrids," Cinder bit out, "and for allowing us the use of your facilities. If you would like to terminate this arrangement, you may do so."

"And leave you with nowhere to stay and nothing but a pack of imbeciles to inject your eggs? That seems overly harsh."

"Fine. What do you _want,_ Arthur?"

Doctor Watts peeled off his gloves, tossing them into a small bin by the door. "I've been working on a few things over the years, but I've never actually had the opportunity to test any of them." Mercury tensed, stepping protectively in front of Rudder. "I'd like the chance to borrow a few of the more... tractable pit dragons. Nothing harmful, of course."

Cinder gave him a look that made Rudder think she'd much rather feed him to Crucible.

"Unless you'd rather I asked one of your loyal students?"

For a moment Cinder was silent, glowering, while Strike let out a low and threatening growl. Then she looked away and said, "One of the younger ones. Not Kite—that's the grey wind dragon. So long as you don't touch them, they should be willing to help."

"Thank you."

"It's a good thing you're being responsible." Cinder flashed him a vicious smile. "And taking great care not to harm them. Otherwise I suspect you'd find yourself short a hand."

"...Duly noted."

* * *

"This place is awesome," Ruby decided, leaning back into Storm's side and sighing contentedly. It had been _so long _since she'd been able to sit back and relax, knowing that they wouldn't have to pick up and move again in a few days.

Beside her, Emerald smirked. "You're just saying that because we don't have to deal with Vernal anymore."

"Am not!" Ruby stuck her tongue out. "We _also _don't have to be around Raven. And by we I mostly mean Yang."

Emerald hummed. "What was that about, anyway?"

"Not my thing to share. Sorry."

"Right."

Ruby squirmed in the silence, wishing she could sink into the ground. She blamed her friends—especially Emerald!—for getting her used to having actual conversations where people smiled when she fumbled a little. Now when things got awkward it felt _weird, _not just... how talking to people was. She scooted closer, until their shoulders were brushing, and that helped.

"I'm sorry about the other night, too."

Emerald drew her legs up, but didn't move away. "I know."

"Yang grabbing you was totally uncalled for."

"Not really." She grinned sheepishly. "I probably would've bolted."

"Why? Even if things, um..." Ruby glanced around, but there was no one close by, "...don't work out with you-know-who, that isn't _your _fault. You're a good person, and you love Jade, and—"

The green earth dragon opened one eye at the sound of her name, and hummed agreement. "Em gud."

"...Yeah. They shouldn't have interrogated you like that."

Emerald curled in on herself even further. "Thanks."

Ruby thought she still looked miserable. She wished she could be like Yang and say exactly the right thing. Or, y'know, _anything._ But she wasn't, so she just glomped her. It was kind of a weird angle, but it was warm and nice and she really hoped Emerald wouldn't notice how fast her heart was beating.

"You don't have to."

"That's... a weird thing to say," Ruby decided. "Since when do people hug each other because they have to?"

Emerald made a few odd noises as she searched for an answer to that. Then she tensed so suddenly that Ruby jumped away from her. They were sitting between their dragons, curled up between a clump of buildings and a sheer cliff. It was a pretty out of the way spot... but Cinder was standing in one of the windows. She quirked one eyebrow, and was gone.

"Huh." Ruby grinned at Emerald. "I guess that's where she and Strike are stay—um, are you okay?"

"Fine," Emerald said quickly. The strange look on her face vanished behind a shaky smile. "Just surprised, that's all."

"...Right. Well, I promised Storm I'd talk to Penny, so—"

"Urr?"

"Gods!" Emerald yelped, startling so badly that she accidentally kneed Ruby in the side. There was a dragon clinging to the roof of one of the nearby buildings, peering at them with curious golden eyes.

"Hey, Glory," Ruby said, smiling and keeping her hands at her sides. Clawless toes flexed, and Glory leaped to the ground with hardly a sound.

"I can't believe I actually thought there might be some _privacy _once we finally got here," Emerald grumbled. Then, when Glory let out a distressed whine, she rolled her eyes and relented. "Yeah, yeah, hello to you too."

Storm lifted her head to greet the pit dragon. Glory shrank back, pacing warily around their group. Most of the pit dragons hated to be touched by humans and faunus, but she seemed to be the only one that felt just as uncomfortable around other dragons. Not that any of them were super chummy with strangers of _any_ species...

"Are you liking it here?" Ruby asked.

"Urr..."

"Something's wrong? The bigger dragons aren't giving you any trouble, are they?"

"Urr."

"Well, that's good."

Emerald was staring at her. "What?" Ruby blurted, suddenly self-conscious.

"How do you do that?"

"Um... do what?"

Emerald jerked her head towards Glory. "Understand this one. I met her at Shade, and I couldn't figure her out at all."

"Didn't you say she helped you set a building on fire?"

"Yeah, and I _still _don't know why she didn't try to bite my head off when I asked." Emerald paused, apparently just now realizing what she'd said. "When I asked her to help me get into the safe, I mean." Her eyes flicked down to her hands where they were folded in her lap. "The fire part was an accident."

"I don't know why she did that either. It's really weird, now that I think about it. Most of the fire dragons that came with us are super friendly."

Emerald snorted. "The other one more than makes up for it."

"Heh, yeah." Ruby grinned and glanced at Glory. "But if you _really _wanna know how I know what she means—see her tail?"

"It's hard to miss."

"It's curved up right now, which means she's happy. If it were lying flat on the ground, I'd guess she _was _having trouble with the others."

"Oh."

"I wonder where Inkwell is, though." Ruby frowned. "I usually see them together."

Glory pointed her nose towards the path that led out of the valley.

"She went out hunting?" Ruby guessed.

Her tail drooped.

"She'll be back soon though, right?"

Glory folded her ears back, even as she nodded her head. She made a small whimpering noise.

"What's wrong?"

But Glory just sat there, her tail flicking back and forth. Ruby wondered if she'd gone looking for them on purpose—she seemed like she was feeling a bit lonely, or maybe just anxious. She knew trying to comfort her would only make things worse, so she turned to Emerald and mustered a smile. "Anyway, I should probably—"

"'Enny," Storm said, shoving her nose into Ruby's back.

She giggled. "Yeah, that."

"That's the translator thing, right?"

"Yep!" Ruby reached back under her cloak and withdrew the metal plate. As it caught the light, Storm perked up—and Glory hissed. Her back arched, her eyes narrowed, and she bared her teeth at the device.

"Whoa!" Ruby put the plate down and tried to keep her voice calm. "It's okay. We're just going to use it to talk to—"

Glory shrieked at the top of her lungs and flared her wings. Seconds later she was gone, slithering between two buildings and disappearing into the dark. Ruby could only stare in stunned silence. "What the...?"

Emerald looked like she might be sick. "Maybe... she doesn't like metal?'

"She didn't mind tin cans or anything. And a lot of the Branwen bandits had knives and stuff."

Shrugging, Emerald turned her head away. "I don't know, then."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Ruby moved to take her hand, but she jerked it away. That... stung.

"Sorry. I feel... bad, that's all." Emerald swallowed. "I tried to pat her back at Shade, and she _really _didn't like it. Maybe it's me."

"Nah," Ruby said. She hesitated a moment, then made another tentative attempt. This time Emerald let her link their hands together. "It was definitely Penny that freaked her out. She might just have a thing about machines."

Storm nudged her expectantly. "Okay, girl! Just hold still a second." Ruby placed Penny at the crown of her head, and waited as the shining armor spread down her back and sides. The light blinked green.

"Salutations Ruby," Penny said. "My memory indicates that you wished to speak with Storm at this time." Emerald sat up, eyeing the device with new curiosity.

"Yep!"

"Acknowledged. Engaging translation software..."

The light blinked yellow for a moment. Then Storm's voice came through.

"Ruby, don't let them take Penny away!"

"I won't." Ruby stroked her dragon's forehead. "I promise!"

"They can't!" Storm insisted. "She's my friend!"

"Uh..." Emerald shifted uncomfortably. "She's a robot."

Ruby glanced at the metal plate. The light had just blinked yellow again. She was suddenly reminded of all those strange 'glitches,' the moments where Penny seemed almost reluctant to disengage once their sessions were over. "Storm? What are you trying to say?"

"She's alive," Storm insisted. "She was scared, and now she's not, and it's because she trusts me! You can't let them take her!"

Ruby's mouth opened and closed a few times. "Oh. Okay. Um..." She glanced at Emerald, but the older girl stared back at her, just as baffled. "Penny?"

"Awaiting instructions."

Glancing at Storm's wide, pleading eyes, Ruby swallowed once and said, "Can you talk to us? Not translating for Storm. Just yourself."

The light blinked yellow, then red... then green again. "Yes."

Ruby and Emerald glanced at each other. "So..." Emerald said, "do you, uh, want anything?"

"I would like to stay with Storm." Penny's light flashed violently from red to yellow. "My sensors tell me it has been a long time since the festival."

"Kinda..." Ruby admitted. "A couple of, um... months."

Red. Yellow. Green. "Acknowledged."

"Sorry about that. Cinder didn't know you were alive. None of us did, actually."

"Where was I while I was turned off?"

Ruby shot another desperate glance at Emerald, but she just shrugged. "We don't know. Cinder had this scientist guy fix you."

Red. Yellow. Red. Yellow...

"I see."

Storm whined softly. "Are you okay?" Ruby asked, putting a hand on her side.

Penny translated her response. "I don't like the scientist man."

Emerald made a face. "Most people don't."

"Okay. We'll be careful about him." Ruby shot a nervous glance towards the window Cinder had been standing in earlier, but it was empty. "So. Um..." She faltered. The conversation felt pretty much over at this point, but... she couldn't turn Penny off_ now!_

"Penny is scared," Storm said.

"She doesn't have to be," Ruby assured them both. She bit her lip, remembering something the machine had told her once. "Penny... would staying on Storm for a long time hurt her?"

"No. My design prioritizes the health and safety of the dragon I am bonded with."

"How do we know if she's lying?" Emerald asked.

"I am incapable of deception."

"So we believe you because _you _told us you can't lie? That's—"

"Please?" Storm's voice, now. She butted her nose against Ruby's chest.

She took a deep breath. "Can you stay in, like, sleep mode or something? There's some Dust here, but I think Cinder is using most of it for the eggs. She probably doesn't want using tons of it to keep you running all day." A beat. "And, uh... you'd probably have to power down while Storm is asleep."

The light turned yellow while Penny thought it over. "I can remain at half-power, and sleep when Storm does." she promised.

"...Okay," Ruby decided. Storm pounced on her, licking her face and warbling joyfully.

"Thank you!"

It was the most emotion Ruby had ever heard in Penny's voice.


	44. Torn

**Happy Friday folks! This chapter, the students meet someone new and get put to work.**

* * *

**44\. Torn**

* * *

Emerald _almost _made it back to the cabins. She and Ruby and their dragons were all clumped together—and Penny, as promised, was still on Storm's head. The light had turned red, indicating that the device was dormant.

Then, when they were only a few dozen feet away, "Emerald."

She stopped in her tracks, wincing. Emerald knew this conversation had to happen—she'd known it was going to for a long time. But she would have given just about _anything _to at least wait until morning.

"What is it?" she asked, turning to face Cinder.

"I'd like a word." A polite smile for Ruby. "I won't keep her long." Then Cinder led Emerald away by the wrist. Helplessly, she followed.

They entered the building where Cinder herself was staying. Technically Doctor Watts had a room in here as well, but he'd admitted he usually slept in his lab instead. The door shut behind them. Sweat pricked her palms. This had to be about what Cinder had seen earlier. Did she mind? Did Emerald _want _her to mind?

"You've taken an interest in one of our new recruits." Cinder's tone was mild, but a shadow stirred in one corner of the room. Emerald stared at Strike and wished she'd thought to bring Jade along. But she hadn't, and she doubted Cinder would have wanted her to, anyway. Not knowing what else to do, she nodded.

"I see." Cinder started to pace. Emerald couldn't see her face, couldn't even begin to guess what she was thinking. She smothered a mad urge to apologize—it would be presumptuous, wouldn't it? "That's good."

Again the words were neutral. Carefully neutral. Emerald knew they were hiding something, but she couldn't tell if it was annoyance at the distraction, relief that her attention would finally be elsewhere... hurt? She shook that thought away. _Stupid._

Then Cinder faced her again, and she was all business. "I'm sure you already know that things are delicate right now. Be careful how much you say."

"Of course."

When a hand came down on her shoulder, Emerald almost choked. "And I don't need to tell you how important it is that she stays on our side."

Emerald couldn't help the shiver. She tried not to think about that—it left her feeling clammy and weak. "They'll understand," she promised. Ruby would, at the very least. But if her sister came down on the other side... her _teammates..._ Emerald could only hope she could at least convince her not to fight.

But it wouldn't come to that_._

"We'll send them out soon," Cinder promised. "You and Mercury are my most skilled and loyal lieutenants. I'll need you both—and since you've done so well ingratiating yourself with them, I think you should handle the Beacon students. Mercury and Neo will meet with some of the defectors of Shade and Haven for a different task."

"Right." The compliment, the _trust, _warmed her from her ears to the tips of her toes. "I won't let you down."

"I know. That's why I'm trusting you with an additional matter." Strike prowled around her—blue eyes and gold both shimmered like candle flames, bobbing as they paced through the dim cabin. "One that falls to you, in Mercury's absence."

It was like being plucked from the hearth and plunged into a bucket of ice water. She and Mercury had similar skillsets, but there were some things they specialized in. She could hide in plain sight, slip between people without them noticing, hands dipping feather-light into their pockets. And Mercury...

Mercury had learned a lot from his father.

* * *

The next morning Zircon stood with the other dragons, warbling nervously and shifting from paw to paw. Cinder had told them to assemble here at midday. Huo and Nymph thought that must mean she had a job for them. He'd thought they were supposed to be resting.

Their riders had explained about what Blake's friend had told her, and how they had to pay close attention to what Cinder said from now on, so they could decide whether or not she was really trying to help. He'd wanted so badly to sleep and play with the others, and finally spend a few days feeling _safe._

A door banged open. Zircon jumped—but it wasn't Cinder. It wasn't Doctor Watts or Torchwick, either. Instead, a man in a long violet coat strode out. There was a dragonet sitting on his head, his tail twined around his rider's long black braid.

He did a double-take at the sight of them. A too-wide grin spread across his face. "Ah," he crooned. "Our vigorous young rebels."

"Um... hi?" Ruby glanced around, as if hoping someone else would talk to him instead. "Who...?"

The man swept a bow. His dragonet, already almost woven into his hair, barely stirred at the motion. He was a strange hatchling, with a stranger smell, and watched them all with enormous blue eyes. A spark jumped between his horns.

"I am Tyrian" The man reached up, letting the dragonet cling to his wrist instead. "And _this..._ is my Goddess."

"Is she a hybrid?" Sun asked, suddenly much more interested.

Zircon blinked a few times. 'She' was part of the set of words their riders usually used for dragons like Nymph or Twiggy... but this one smelled more like Nimbus or Huo. It was a faint difference, so maybe he'd gotten it wrong? He questioned Nymph, who shrugged.

"I thought that's what those little words meant, too," she admitted. "Maybe it's more complicated than that?"

As they talked, Tyrian cooed and stroked the dragonet's head. "Indeed she is. Like the most sublime of storm-fronts, rolling over troubled waters—"

_"Tyrian."_

The hatchling squeaked and tried to jump back onto her rider's head, but she misjudged the distance and had to cling to his ear, her wings flapping frantically. More sparks jumped from her horns and tail, making Tyrian wince.

"Cinder," he said, scooping his dragonet into his arms and falling into another bow.

"I told you to wait until I introduced you," she snapped. Then, to the assembled students, "There isn't much time—"

"That's a hybrid," Blake said, pointing.

Cinder nodded impatiently. "Yes, she is. Thanks to Emerald's discovery, we were able to hatch a dragonet using both energy and water Dust. Other combinations have proven more difficult to decipher, but Doctor Watts is working on that."

Yang frowned. "She looks big for a week old."

Tyrian flashed a manic grin. "My Ozone is older than she looks. Older than your partners, though it's taking her some time to remember her previous life."

There was a long and _deeply _uncomfortable silence.

"What does he mean, previous life?" Zircon asked in a hushed whisper.

Huo snorted. "Beats me."

"Okay...?" Yang managed a queasy smile. "That's nice."

Cinder gripped Tyrian's shoulders. "Find Doctor Watts, and tell him I want him to focus on page twenty-five for the day."

The man bowed again, then turned with a flourish that made his coat shift to one side. Underneath it was a long scorpion's tail that curled around one of his legs. He disappeared into the lab, but the tension of his presence did not.

"You'll have to excuse Tyrian," Cinder said with a grimace. "I wanted to introduce you in more controlled circumstances. He can be... eccentric. You've just met his third dragon."

"Third?" Sage sounded sick.

Professor Goodwitch glanced in the direction Tyrian had gone. "Does he know that's a male dragonet?"

"No," Cinder said flatly. "I thought about mentioning it, but I doubt he'd take it well. He's... fixated. He refused to accept any egg that wasn't an energy and water hybrid. I didn't think he'd take things quite this far, but he treats her well and it makes him happy. I'd prefer if you all let it be."

There was a subdued murmur of agreement.

"Now. I asked you to meet me here because I received information this morning that I'd like you to act on."

Zircon tensed. What could possibly follow the battle at Shade? He cringed just thinking about the chaos, the screams and roars and howls in every direction, the _fear._ Would this be worse? _Could _this be worse?

"The council are transporting dragons to a nearby facility to be culled." Cinder smirked. "I'm sure they'd hate to run into trouble along the way."

Huo's head jerked up. "Yes!" he barked. "Let's do it!"

"How did you even find out about this?" Sun asked, holding a hand out to encourage Huo to settle.

"I can't name my source... but the information is good, and urgent. It will take most of the day to fly to intercept them. If you go now, that should leave you with a few hours to set up. Emerald will go with you, and any pit dragons that choose to join the mission."

Ruby glanced around. "Um... I can't pick for anyone else, but I'd like to go." There were nods and raised hands. No one wanted to be left out—except for Professor Goodwitch, who decided she could be more useful if she stayed behind to look after the remaining pit dragons. At that, Pyrrha started to look anxious.

As they dispersed to collect their gear—with Freya grumbling under her breath that they were supposed to be _resting _now—Zircon stuck close by Sage's side. His rider must have sensed his nervousness. "What's wrong?"

"Ffight," Zircon said miserably.

Sage put a hand on his nose. "Do you want to stay behind?" He was trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice, but didn't totally succeed. Zircon shook his head. He couldn't just let the council take those dragons away and kill them!

"Well... how about you and I don't do as much fighting?" Sage suggested. "It's just as important to free the dragons quickly, so that they can help us. We'll bring it up with the others when we start planning how we're going to do this." Zircon purred into his chest. That was good—he could help make the other dragons safe, but there wouldn't be so many council dragons diving at him and Sage.

When they gathered, several of the pit dragons were already following them, their heads tilted curiously. Nymph and Pit explained things. Crucible—to Zircon's secret horror—jumped at the chance to attack the council. To make things even worse, Dusk and Diver wanted to come with them, too. Dusk was almost as scary, and she and Diver liked fighting so much that they dueled each other almost every day.

Tumbleweed, the big three-legged earth dragon, also decided to join. He even consented to let Pyrrha ride on his back until they got there, so that they wouldn't have to leave her behind. As they headed out, he ambled along beside Zircon and gave him a friendly sniff.

"Hi," Zircon squeaked.

"Don't worry, little one." The older dragon bumped him with his nose. "Many will be with you."

Zircon nodded gratefully. He just wished they didn't have to do so much fighting.

* * *

"I wish we didn't have to do so much _waiting," _Fang groaned, later that evening as the sun dipped towards the horizon. His tail flicked back and forth, and he was sorely tempted to spit fire at the stupid bush he was hiding behind.

Diver, the toothless water dragon that was hidden to his left, snorted. "Hothead."

"Hey!"

"The impatient ones are easy," Dusk told Diver. "Bait them and wait. They'll jump right into your claws."

"Says the dragon that picked a fight with Crucible," Fang grumbled.

She bristled. "You back down from a fight in the pits and you _die."_

"You're not _in _the pits anymore."

Dusk let out a low, amused hiss. "Shows what you know, pup."

Fang growled at her, then cut off with a yelp when Pit's tail flicked his side. "What?"

"Shut up!" Pit's voice was low. "They're coming."

Minutes later, Fang smelled them too. He tensed, crouching even lower in his hiding place. Yang noticed. She whispered to the others, and then the only sound was distant birdsong. The trail was a simple dirt track, cut through the forest about fifty feet away from where they crouched. His whole body thrummed with excitement as he caught sight of a flash of color moving towards them. Then he got a better look, and all of it vanished—replaced by pure rage.

The dragon at the head of the procession was one of the council's, a bulky earth dragon whose head drooped until his nose almost touched the ground. He was flanked by six soldiers on foot, with long rifles slung over their shoulders. There was a harness wrapped around his middle, connected by a chain to a massive wheeled cage. Inside was a reddish-brown fire dragon—and even though she was already locked up, there were more chains binding her legs, her wings, even her _tail._

More council dragons followed, with more cages. There were eight of them in all, and at least a dozen humans with guns. Most of the imprisoned dragons had riders walking beside them, wearing handcuffs and flanked by more soldiers. Two were alone—the fire dragon in the front, and a milky white water dragon near the back.

Fang itched to pounce on them, but he held back. Yang laid a palm flat on his shoulder, tense and ready. Diver's tail twitched back and forth. One of the caged dragons perked up her ears and sniffed the air.

Somewhere in the trees, Emerald must have given the signal. Fang saw Sun raise his hand, and an instant later Yang did the same. He counted in his head. _One... Two... Three!_

The caravan of prisoners was almost directly in front of them when they exploded out of the forest, roaring a challenge. Fang knocked into a group of three gunmen and scattered them like bowling pins. Dusk snatched another in her jaws and tossed him into a tree. He landed in a heap at its base, groaned once, and didn't get up.

Jade, Storm, and most of team JNPR swept down from the trees. They dove at the council riders, snatching at their whips and rifles. Twiggy even managed to knock one of them right out of her saddle.

Zircon and Nimbus went for the cages instead. They were easy to open from the outside, and before long almost all of them were free—but they all moved slowly and sluggishly. Like Pepper had.

Fang roared again. The heat in his belly bubbled up, and he spat a massive glob of flame at a nearby council dragon just as her rider untethered her. She reared in alarm and swept her wings forward. Fang had to dig in his claws against the gust of wind. The second it died down he launched himself at the other dragon and they went rolling over one another, hissing and snapping.

"No!" The wind dragon howled. "No! I don't want to!"

Fang never found out what exactly she didn't want to do. She slashed at him with her claws, catching the tip of his nose and making him bellow in pain. She was bigger than he was, and faster, and her rider kept lashing out with his whip. She flared her wings and launched herself forward, and caught Fang's shoulder in her teeth.

Something slammed into Fang's side. He whined in pain as the teeth were ripped away, then struggled to get up. Dusk had wrestled the other dragon to the ground, and as he watched she caught the rider's whip arm in her mouth. She shook once, contemptuously. The rider dropped the weapon.

"Don't just run at them," she said, as the other dragon beat frantically at her with her tail. Dusk's head snapped toward her throat, and when the council dragon twisted to one side to avoid it, she clawed at her side instead. "Feint, or wait until they're distracted, or _something._ Especially if they're bigger than you."

Fang blinked. "Okay?"

Dusk finally caught the other dragon's throat in her teeth and held it there for a moment, until she rolled onto her belly in submission. The pit dragon scoffed and backed away. "This is just pathetic."

When Fang looked around, he realized there were only four council dragons still standing. Tumbleweed and Diver were each engaged with one of them, and a third was being dogpiled by both Nymph and Huo. There was a long gash across Sun's chest. Fang's tail twitched.

"Go for it, dude," Yang murmured, patting his neck. "Just be careful, okay?"

He circled behind the water dragon, then jumped on her back. She howled and tried to shake him off, but with Nymph hanging off her left side and Huo pinning her right wing, it didn't take long before she slumped to the ground.

The last council dragon had perched on top of one of the cages. Storm flew at him, knocking him to the ground, and they rolled into a clump of bushes. Fang tensed, ready to jump in and help, but one of the soldiers had managed to get her rifle up. He darted towards her.

The council dragon's tail slammed into Storm's back, only to bounce off a metal plate. Storm's wings flapped, buffeting him with wind. His rider's whip hit more metal. Then the soldier fired her rifle—a miss.

"Gunfire detected," Penny's voice said cheerfully. "Engaging full armor protection." More metal plating rolled over Storm's spine, covering her sides and chest. There was a shower of sparks, where the soldier's second shot hit the armor. Then Fang finally reached her, and pushed her facedown into the dirt with one paw.

With every attack by dragon or rider caught by Penny's armor, Storm could ignore them while she chewed through the council rider's straps. Once that was done, she lifted him from the saddle. His partner went limp in her jaws.

"Did we win?" she asked, her voice slightly muffled through her grip on the man's jacket.

* * *

"Easy," Ruby murmured. The pale water dragon groaned, butting its head against her chest.

"Rroy," it mumbled. "Rroy..." Its tail jerked and slammed into one of the cages, rattling the bars.

"Potentially hostile action detected. Shall I engage combat mode?"

"No thank you, Penny." Ruby patted the metal plate on Storm's head. "We're all good now."

There were hardly any injuries. Fang, Huo, and Nymph all had some scratches, and a bullet had clipped Tumbleweed's shoulder, but none of their wounds were life-threatening. Penny had scanned them and said that they would probably heal within a week. Sun's cut was the worst, but as long as it was, it was shallow.

Blake suggested stuffing the council riders and soldiers into the cages they'd brought with them, which seemed like the best way to deal with them. A few were hurt badly enough to need immediate medical attention—mostly the ones that had tangled with the pit dragons—so they decided to let the council dragons carry those back to Vale.

"Somebody will probably come pick you up in a few hours," Yang told them, as she handcuffed the cage doors shut. "So just sit tight until then, 'kay?"

The six riders they'd freed were all students from Haven or Shade. As soon as they were told where their classmates were, they wanted to head out. The dragons were sluggish from being drugged, but they could still walk.

That left them with the two riderless dragons, a cage full of council soldiers and riders, and a job well done. Ruby looked around, doing a last head-count, and froze. "Hey, where's—"

"Where is Sargent Maise?" one of the soldiers demanded. "What have you damned monsters done with her?"

"Wait, are we missing one?" Sun looked around. "Did anybody count them at the beginning?"

"I think there were like fifteen?" Neptune squinted, one index finger extended as he mouthed, _twelve, thirteen..._ "There's only fourteen! We _are _missing one!"

"Three of them _left, _remember?" Weiss said. "You must have counted wrong, unless we managed to pick up two extras."

"Guys!" Ruby broke in, stopping the argument before it started. "Where's Emerald?"

Yang pointed at something behind her. She whirled around. Emerald rode out of the woods, looking alarmed by how many people were staring at her.

"Where is Maise?" The soldier slammed her hands against the cage bars.

Emerald stiffened. Then she jerked her thumb at the forest behind her. "I saw somebody run off that way, but by the time I followed they were gone."

Yang shrugged. "We already sent a few back to Vale, anyway. It's not like this is gonna be a secret."

"Yeah, I figured—" Emerald cut off mid-sentence, staring at the red-brown fire dragon they had just rescued. "Paprika?"

"Do you know her?" Ruby asked as they left the clearing, moving slowly while the sedatives wore off the two riderless dragons.

It turned out that Paprika had been the rallying point for the students at Haven—a fire dragon who couldn't use her powers without burning herself. Emerald was quiet and subdued, mumbling her way through the story and staring at the back of Jade's head instead of making eye contact. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was bothering her.

"It's not your fault," she said.

Emerald jumped. "What—?"

"Paprika. If you hadn't done anything, she would've been culled."

"Oh." Emerald's shoulders slumped. "Yeah, well. She lived and he died. I don't think she'd thank me."

Somewhere behind them, there was a low growl. Ruby twisted in the saddle and saw that Paprika herself was watching them. "Nnno." The word came out slurred by sedatives. "Emm... trrry. Gud."

Emerald didn't look up. "Thanks," she said, her voice thick. "That helps."


	45. The Good Doctor

**Hey folks! This Tuesday dragon fix, Blake and Weiss play a game of fetch.**

* * *

**45\. The Good ****Doctor**

* * *

In the wake of their latest battle against the council, there were important matters to take care of.

"Shirt off."

Namely, injuries. Sun was dinged up a bit, to put it mildly. One of the council dragons had scratched him across the chest. It didn't feel very deep, but... _ouch._

He grinned sheepishly at his best friend as he shrugged off the ruined shirt. "You know, if you're not careful I might take that the wrong—"

Neptune waved a tube of disinfectant in his face. "I can't stop you from getting yourself hurt like an idiot, but I can at least make sure you get medical treatment after."

"Nah. You stop me from getting hurt like an idiot all the time."

A flick at his forehead. "Hey!"

Neptune fumbled a roll of bandages out of one of his saddlebags, giving Sun a stern glare the whole time. "Dude, seriously. Huo's like... twenty times your size. If _he _thinks it's a little risky..."

"I know, I know!" He winced at Neptune started winding the gauze around his chest.

"Do you? 'Cause I'm looking at where you just got mauled, so—"

"Hey." Sun dropped both hands on Neptune's shoulders, noticing for the first time the way his hair was a bit rumpled, as if he'd been running his hands through it. "I'm okay. I knew you had my back."

Neptune snorted. "Yeah, no pressure or anything."

"If it helps, you've got Nymph on your side."

"It does, actually." Neptune gave him a threatening poke. "But you've gotta take care of yourself better."

"Alright, alr—wait a second!" Sun pointed at Neptune's forehead. "You've got a cut too!"

"I do?"

Sun lunged for the disinfectant. "C'mere!"

"Hey! I'm not done bandaging you!" Neptune wiggled an open safety pin menacingly. "Stay still!"

"Never!"

As fun as it was to tease, Sun was very careful as he stole a cotton ball and dripped a bit of the disinfectant onto it. Wasting medical supplies was definitely one of the top five Things Not to Do when you were on the run. Then he went back to teasing Neptune, before finally half-tackling him and mushing the cotton ball into his forehead.

"That's a scratch," Neptune complained. "It's completely different and _not a priority!"_

"Even a scratch can get infected," Sun said solemnly. It was what Neptune always used to tell him when he chased him around with alcohol swabs every time he skinned his knees.

"Yeah, and yours is like eight inches longer than—_never mind!"_

Sun snickered. "Man, I had this whole great comeback planned, but I don't think I can top that." He ruffled Neptune's hair, grinning through the grumbling. Then, because he was starting to come down off the adrenaline high and he _did_ have a giant claw wound on his chest, he sat still while his friend fixed him up.

"There," he said cheerfully, though it was really starting to hurt now. "Good as new."

Neptune flicked him again.

Sun sighed. "Look, uh... serious talk for a second?"

"...Yeah?"

"Thanks. It would've been a lot worse if you weren't there." He fidgeted with the bandage. "In that fight, and also my life in general."

* * *

Pyrrha had hoped that the sedative the council had used would wear off quickly. At the very least, she'd hoped they would be able to fly back to the hidden lab during the night.

It did not wear off quickly. She suspected a different drug was used during transport—from what Ren and Nora had told her Pepper hadn't been out of it nearly this long, but she hadn't even been able to walk. They made camp the night of the rescue, and would have suffered through a cold and miserable dinner if Yang hadn't had the excellent idea of wrapping hot dogs in tinfoil and baking them on Fang's back.

That evening was spent trying to guess the other dragon's name—which turned out to be Pearl—and fighting over spots next to Huo and Fang. No one was foolish enough to ask Crucible to keep them warm. The next morning everyone was glad to see the rescued dragons had fully recovered. At least, they _were_ glad, right up until a newly spirited Paprika bit Tumbleweed.

He took it amiably, letting her hang off his good foreleg while they all tried frantically to dislodge her. Pyrrha swatted her sharply on the nose. Paprika reared and snapped at her instead. She wasn't _actually _trying to bite—her teeth stopped a good foot or so short. Pyrrha jumped up and wrapped both arms around her jaws.

"There's no need for that," she said, gently but firmly. "We're trying to help."

It said something about the past few weeks that Pyrrha was slightly taken aback when Paprika drew back and fell into a harmless sulk. She was too used to pit dragons.

Other incidents cropped up during the flight back. Pearl was often listless, and would slow to a crawl until given gentle encouragement by Jaune or Ruby. Paprika kept snapping at other dragons when they got too close—right up until she made the mistake of going for Crucible's tail. He turned around, terribly slowly, and hawked a gob of blue-white fire at her feet. She stumbled backwards so quickly she crashed into a tree and almost knocked it down.

"No ffire!" she whined. "Nno!"

Then, _finally,_ they reached the hidden valley. Pyrrha followed the rest of her team to one of the cabins, dumping their things in a heap. After that they ranged around in the woods, looking for a good spot to rest. They found it in a small hill overlooking the valley, shaded heavily with trees and crowned with two large rocks. She and Jaune took one, while Ren and Nora curled up on the other.

"You were amazing out there," Jaune said, into an easy silence.

Pyrrha smiled. "So were you and Twiggy."

Nora kicked her feet against her rock. "It seemed like you and Tumbleweed got along okay."

He's friendly. And apparently _very _easygoing."

More fidgeting from Nora. It seemed like she was teetering on the edge of saying something. She glanced at Ren, who gave a small nod. "Do you think, maybe... you might want to hang out with him more? Or one of the others, like Paprika?"

Pyrrha's eyes dropped to her lap. "I... doubt that Tumbleweed would want that."

Jaune bumped her shoulder gently with his own. "It doesn't have to be Tumbleweed. Just... is that something _you _want?"

"I don't know." She drew her legs up to her chest. "I'm not sure I'm ready."

Things had just started to feel... not _better, _exactly, but... like they'd finally stopped getting worse. She was getting used to the long nights, the random pangs of grief, even the twinges of jealousy she felt sometimes when she looked at her friends. The thought of having to go through all of that a _second _time... To heal enough to trust and love another dragon, maybe even feel okay again, and have that ripped away?

"I can't believe Tyrian is as put together as he is."

"That won't happen," Jaune said fiercely. "We won't let it."

Pyrrha leaned into his side. "Maybe after this is all over."

Ren nodded. "It's your choice."

"Totally!" Nora agreed. "But like... if Crucible let you ride him again, would you?"

"He won't."

"It's a hypothetical!"

Pyrrha smiled. "Then I would hypothetically avoid being set on fire by giving him lots and lots of space."

* * *

Blake stood on the valley floor on her own two feet, her hands held loosely at her sides. It felt good to finally be able to—she'd ditched the crutches for good once they got back to the camp. More of a formality than anything else, since she'd been walking unaided off and on for the past week or so, but... still.

She bent down to scoop up a stick and tossed it, putting her whole body into the throw. It spun end-over-end and landed on the opposite side of the valley. Glory scrambled after it with her wings slightly extended.

"Does she seem... off, to you?" Weiss asked.

"Not sure." Blake watched Glory lower her head to snatch up the stick. "I haven't talked to her much."

"She seems... jumpy." A door closed with a snap somewhere in the clump of cabins. Glory dropped to her belly, her wings flaring in alarm.

Blake frowned. "Maybe she's having trouble adjusting to the new dragons?"

"I doubt either of them would pick on her. Pearl doesn't seem interested in starting fights, and Paprika hates fire."

As they watched, Inkwell lumbered over to Glory, who had finally picked up the stick in her jaws. The water dragon squinted in their general direction. Blake raised a hand and waved. The second she did, Inkewell noticed them and bounded closer. It was hard to say exactly what made her act like that, but Blake suspected she was nearsighted. She didn't have a problem seeing things that were very close to her, but sometimes missed far-away objects completely until they moved.

Both pit dragons reached them at the same time. Glory dropped the stick at Blake's feet, then sniffed cautiously at Pit and Specter.

"That was good," Blake said encouragingly, smiling at Glory. When she bent to pick up the stick, Inkwell tensed and stepped between her and the other dragon.

"It's alright," Weiss told her. "We're playing a game."

Inkwell squinted at them for a moment, weighing the idea suspiciously, then sat down a few feet from them. For the next several minutes, she only broke her stare to glance at Glory and see how she was doing.

"What happened?" asked Weiss. "Why are you so worried?"

"Bad," Inkwell mumbled. She wouldn't elaborate any further.

After playing a few more rounds of fetch, Blake turned to Weiss. "So... that last mission. What did you think?"

"It was good." This time when Glory returned with the stick held proudly in her jaws, she dropped it in front of Weiss instead. It took her a moment to realize what the dragon wanted and give it a toss. They both watched Glory trot after it, standing shoulder-to shoulder. Then Weiss sighed and said, "I think I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"It _was _good, though. We saved eight dragons. There were only a few injuries, even including the council's side, and most of those were Crucible."

"I'm starting to think we shouldn't bring him out on missions," Weiss said, grimacing. "Didn't Pyrrha have to force him to stop attacking a first year dragon?"

"He _is _getting better. At this rate he might actually figure out what restraint is."

Behind her, Inkwell snorted.

"Don't mind her," Weiss drawled. "I think she must be sick or something, because that sounded suspiciously like optimism."

"I feel more optimistic." Blake grinned as Glory, still on the other side of the valley, tossed the stick up in the air and caught it again. "I was so hung up on all the bad things going on that I forgot... sometimes we can just do what's right, without having to worry about trade-offs and least-worst choices."

Glory rolled in the grass, her tail thumping the dirt as it wagged.

"It's just starting to hit me that things are actually better," Weiss said softly. "A week ago, eight dragons were as good as dead. Now they're safe. Or, well, relatively safe. There _is _still the council to worry about."

Blake bumped her shoulder. "We did good."

Warmed by the sun on her back and Weiss' answering smile, she had to marvel for a moment at where they were. Playing fetch with a dragon that would have been fighting for someone's sick entertainment if they hadn't been there. Standing on a leg that had taken a bullet, as the last lingering stiffness of the wound faded away. Not free of the council, or of old demons and scars... but, at least for the moment, feeling whole.

"Hey, Weiss?"

"Hm?" Weiss was watching Glory trot towards them, her ears perked up tall.

"I wanted to say... that..."

Blake trailed off—Glory had paused to look over her shoulder. Her whole body tensed, her back arching like a cat's. The stick tumbled from her mouth. She darted out of sight behind one of the buildings, so quickly that Blake would be hard-pressed to say which way she'd gone. Inkwell raised herself up on her hind legs, warbling in alarm. Then she galloped after the younger dragon. Pit called out to her, but she ignored him.

In seconds, they were alone again.

"What on earth...?" Weiss looked at Specter. "Did you see what happened?"

"Kwuhll mad," he said.

"Do you know why?"

"Nno."

"Alright." She patted his nose. "Thank you, Specter."

"I'm getting worried about them," Blake murmured. "All the pit dragons."

"Most of them seem fine. Tumbleweed even let Pyrrha ride him."

"Yeah..." Blake frowned at the place where Glory had vanished. "But Tallow's been acting weird, too."

"We could try asking them."

"Not Tallow. He can't talk, remember? Even other dragons can't always figure out what he's saying."

"I didn't mean Tallow. And I suppose Glory can't talk either..." Weiss froze. "Wait. Which dragons have been acting oddly?"

"Apart from them?" Blake thought about it for a moment. "Those two... and Sage mentioned Riptide has been shakier, but that that's probably just because she's naturally anxious and we're jumping into a war." Then, when she noticed the look on Weiss' face, "Why do you ask?"

"So the ones that seem different, they're all—"

Something caught Blake's eye. She grabbed Weiss' wrist, cutting her off in mid-sentence. Doctor Watts was standing in the space between two buildings. Out of earshot, she was sure, but he was definitely watching them. _How long has he been there?_

Weiss noticed where she was looking and swore under her breath. "What does he think he's doing?"

"Coming over here, apparently."

He walked slowly and casually, giving them a genial smile as he got closer. "Good afternoon."

"Hello," Weiss said, her expression guarded. "Did you need something?"

"Actually, yes." His smile widened, and he dropped into a stiff bow. "I'd like to pick your brain on ice for a moment, if I may. Perhaps talk about this gorgeous fellow here?"

Weiss glanced at Blake, then returned her attention to the doctor. "So long as Specter doesn't mind." Judging by his agreeable whistle, he didn't.

Blake wasn't sure what made her do it. Maybe it was the timing, him appearing so soon after Glory and Inkwell had run off. Maybe she was being paranoid again. But she blurted out, "We can talk some more afterwards."

Weiss flashed her a grateful look. "Of course. I'll meet you in half an hour."

A flash of annoyance passed across Watts' face. Perhaps he'd just been hoping to talk to Weiss longer than that... perhaps not. _That's right,_ Blake thought, meeting his eyes with a glare. _Someone will notice if she's gone too long._

* * *

Doctor Watts' lab smelled strange. Specter wandered in a slow circle, careful not to disturb any of the machines or oddly-colored beakers. It wasn't that it smelled _bad,_ he soon decided. Just... too clean. Nothing but metal and plastic and an unfamiliar chemical smell that reminded him of the stuff Weiss used to clean things with.

"Make yourselves comfortable." Doctor Watts gestured to a chair near one end of the lab. Weiss didn't sit. She kept one hand on the back of Specter's neck. He leaned into the touch, whistling softly.

Clearing his throat, Watts tried again. "I understand that your family has exclusive rights to ice dragons."

"For now."

"I don't suppose you remember the formula?"

"Not off-hand. Maybe a stabilizing element?"

He hummed thoughtfully. "I'd considered it, but there's very little data to work with, so it's hard to say which element would work best. Everything was destroyed in the purge."

"Not quite _everything."_

"Excepting Emerald's find, obvously. It's been quite fascinating, though unfortunately whoever wrote it was... shall we say _erratic _in their note-taking. I'll need time to decipher it."

"Naturally," Weiss said. There was a strange bite in her voice that made Specter shift uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Perhaps I could do a few minor tests? Nothing invasive, of course, just checking to see if he has any particular elemental affinity—"

"Try water."

Doctor Watts blinked. "Pardon?"

"Ice dragons have quite a few similarities to water dragons. Specter and I were grouped with them during elemental lessons at Beacon."

"That _is_ the intuitive guess," Doctor Watts agreed, sounding a little put out. He circled around to stand in front of Specter. "He is quite the specimen."

Specter tried not to squeak. Nobody had stared at him this intensely before, and he wasn't sure he liked it. Weiss gave him a soothing pat and said, "Specimen isn't the word I'd use."

"Forgive me—I've been holed up in here so long I've started to call my drinking glasses beakers." He glanced at Weiss. "Would you mind if I took a few measurements? It would be helpful to document differences between elementals, and he's the only data point I'm ever likely to have on ice dragons."

Weiss glanced at Specter. He still felt a little uncomfortable, but he nodded. Being measured didn't sound too bad.

The doctor disappeared for a moment and came back with a tape measure. He wore gloves—something about lab safety, though Specter thought it was silly—and his movements were careful and gentle. Watts measured everything from his length from nose to tail, to the distances between the spines on his back, to the width of his eyes. That last measurement he asked Weiss to take. "I doubt he'd appreciate me getting so close to his face, and I wouldn't want to poke him in the eye."

Slowly, Weiss relaxed, and that meant Specter could do the same. He sniffed some of the more interesting beakers. Once Watts snapped at him to, "Get away from there!" but afterwards he apologized and explained that its contents were very acidic and might have hurt Specter's nose.

"Of course you are free to refuse," he said, when the measuring was over, "but I'd like to take a few samples as well. No blood, I wouldn't ask that, but perhaps saliva? Dust leaves traces on the molecular level, you see. If I can learn to read them, I may eventually be able to test hybrid combinations on, say, samples of brood dragons' blood. If we can ensure that a combination is viable before it ever goes to injection..."

He trailed off. Specter hadn't fully understood what he'd said, but it must have sounded good to Weiss. "I wouldn't have a problem with that, but it's up to him." The measuring had been fine, so he nodded again.

The two humans chatted while Watts poked giant cotton swabs into Specter's mouth. Weiss leaned against one of the tables, glancing at some of the beakers and talking about the differences between him and Steele. She also mentioned another ice dragon named Glacier who Specter had never met.

There was a rustle of paper, and all of a sudden Weiss got very quiet. Doctor Watts looked up from where he was examining one of Specter's scales with a magnifying glass. "Is something wrong, Miss Schnee?"

Weiss' smile made Specter pull his ears back. He'd never seen her fake one before, but it looked like she'd had a lot of practice. He almost couldn't tell anything was wrong—but there was a hint of panic in her eyes.

"Of course not," she said smoothly. "I just realized it's probably been almost half an hour now."

"Nonsense. We still have ten minutes at least."

Weiss' free hand curled into a fist, which she held surreptitiously behind her back. Her smile started to look strained. "Right. Well..."

"Now, now," Doctor Watts said, his tone light and teasing. "I'm not nearly done with you yet—I won't have you running away."


	46. Full Bloom

**Alright, buckle up! This Friday Weiss makes an unpleasant discovery, and Sienna's headache doubles in size!**

* * *

**46\. Full Bloom**

* * *

Weiss wasn't proud of it, but the first voice she heard in that moment was Father's.

_Smile. A blank mask is not convincing._ She fixed on the polite smile that she hadn't needed in almost a year now, even as her heart beat frantically against her ribcage. Doctor Watts smiled back. "I hate to pester you, but I was wondering if I might test his field of vision as well?"

_Redirect their attention. _"That would be fine," she said, taking a small step to the side so that Specter's body would block his view of her left hand—held behind her back, much too conspicuous if she left it there. And, curled in her fist, a scrap of paper that was already damp with sweat. The handwriting must belong to Watts, it matched the other hundreds of hastily scrawled notes. Only its odd placement had attracted her attention. It had been hidden under several other papers that looked like they had once been neatly stacked, as if someone had swept them to one side to cover something up. And, at the top of the note, the word jumped out at her—_glycinamide._

Watts circled around Specter. "Whistle when you can see my hand." Slowly, he moved towards the dragon's field of view, wiggling his fingers as he did so. While he was distracted, Weiss slipped the bit of paper into her pocket.

Glycinamide was a chemical solution that resisted the effects of Dust. It had once been touted as a revolution in egg injection—if there was a mistake in the process and too much Dust was used, people speculated that they could use it to neutralize everything and start fresh.

It had been a failure. Dragonets exposed to the mixture were often born with congenital defects, and the name faded into obscurity. Weiss had overheard hushed conversations about the chemical taking place in Father's study. Whole barrels of glycinamide had gone unused, abandoned and forgotten when it became clear that the substance was useless... unless you _wanted _water dragons that couldn't use their gills, or fire dragons without powers, or wind dragons so erratic that culling was almost inevitable.

Surely there was another explanation? It didn't make _sense _for Doctor Watts to use something that made dragons weaker. Was he trying to sabotage Cinder? Then why bring her to his lab? Maybe he'd found a use for it—he did seem quite brilliant. He could be trying to... to design better containers for particularly volatile Dust combinations, or...

_Craft a lie that they want to believe, and they will do most of the work for you._

"Miss Schnee?" She inhaled sharply, but did manage not to jump. "You seem... distracted."

Specter whined and backed up a few paces. Weiss patted his back, trying to will him to relax... but he had noticed something was wrong. He pawed the ground, his ears and tail twitching anxiously. She could see Watts' gaze raking over the dragon, cataloging every uneasy movement. The gleam in his eyes had already been unsettling—now it made her skin crawl.

"I assure you, I'm paying close attention. Your theories about ice dragons' breath are fascinating."

"They are." He took a deliberate step forward, still watching Specter—waiting for his reaction. "Are you sure there is nothing troubling you?"

Weiss could feel the crumpled paper in her pocket, and dreaded that one wrong move might crinkle it and alert the doctor. "I'm a little tired. We haven't had much time to rest since we went out a few days ago. Perhaps we can continue this discussion another time?"

Specter balked at Watts' approach, shooting a few terrified glances towards Weiss. Green eyes bored into hers. "Of course," he said mildly. "I've quite enjoyed speaking with you—we _must _do this again at some point."

She could hear her own pulse. There was a horrible leap of intuition, the sinking realization that they were both playing the same game. A glimpse of something else behind the kind but eccentric doctor. "Yes," she blurted out, moving instinctively towards the door. "We should."

He moved. Before she could stop him, he ran a hand along the frills on Specter's neck. The touch was light and gentle, but the dragon reared up and screeched at him. Startled, Doctor Watts stumbled into a chair and knocked it to the ground. Then, just as suddenly, Specter relaxed.

"Don't touch him without asking me," Weiss snapped.

The ghost of a smile that passed across his face, in the instant that he recovered from the shock, made her stomach churn. "I don't need telling twice," he promised, dropping into a shallow bow and motioning towards the door. "And I won't keep you any longer."

Too easy. It was too easy, and alarm bells were going off in Weiss' head—but she needed to get out, _now._ She forced herself to walk to the door, open it slowly, and shut it without slamming it. Then she broke into a full sprint.

Specter followed placidly behind her.

* * *

Too many guards. That was the problem.

There were guards at the evil place, guards by the tents full of supplies, even guards walking around the camp at night. She was getting better at moving around unnoticed... but she was getting bigger, too. The death smell had been in the air for days, and she was powerless to stop it.

She could sneak up on the guard at night. It would have to be the faceless man—he was the only one who guarded the evil place alone. That was dangerous. He was big, and he had a gun and a horrible sword that screamed and rattled and cut through whole trees. She'd seen it as a hatchling, when he went out to get wood for the fire. He'd nudged her with his boot and told her to move over so the tree wouldn't fall on her.

Dangerous. But not impossible. If she was very quiet, she knew she could get close enough to pounce without being seen. There were other tents all around that she could hide behind. She was bigger now than she used to be. Almost as big as he was. If they fought, and she surprised him, she would win.

Justice wouldn't want her to hurt him, but he didn't want her to destroy the evil place, either. He was gone. He'd promised, but he was gone and she shouldn't care what he thought. She should never have talked to him. If she saw him again, she would bite him.

...She didn't want to hurt the faceless man, either.

A frustrated hiss. It hurt to think about attacking him. It hurt to sleep in her den, when sometimes the wind would change and she'd pick up the smell of the evil place. No matter what she did, _everything _hurt. She hated the camp, she wished she could sleep there, she had to do something and she couldn't do anything...

There was a growl. She dropped into a defensive crouch, her hackles raised. Until now she'd thought the animals had learned to leave her alone, after she'd sent a pack of wolves running with their tails between their legs. Was it Justice?

The sound grew deeper, louder, until she shook where she stood. Even _Brand _didn't sound like that. She growled back, her own voice tiny and weak in comparison. Shadows shifted between the trees. She tensed, waiting for the dragon to step forward.

It wasn't a dragon. A paw extended from the shadows, covered in shaggy black fur that drank the moonlight. Then a head, thick and blocky and covered in a pale bone mask. Two red eyes fixed on her. For the first time in her life, she realized that there were worse smells than the ones that came from the evil place.

"S-stop!" She backed away. Sienna had talked about the creatures of Grimm, the horrible monsters that dragons were bred to destroy. She'd thought they were made-up.

It loped towards her, shaking the ground with every step. She bolted. It was too big, too strong, too heavily armored. She couldn't fight that thing alone, but there was nowhere to _run..._

_Brand could do it,_ she realized. _He's almost the same size. He could kill it by himself._

She was going the wrong way. Further into the woods, into the endless and horrible unknown. There might be more monsters. So she skidded to a halt, her whole body shaking, as the creature roared in anticipation. Then she slid between its four legs and pelted towards the camp.

_You were made for this,_ she told herself, as the trees began to thin out near the clearing where the evil place stood. She could smell it, now. Her wings flared wide, and she threw herself at one of the nearby trees. For a wonderful instant, the air caught her. She was suspended... and then she slammed into the rough bark, scrabbling with her claws and clambering higher and higher. The monster didn't even slow down. It roared again in frustration, but now that it had caught onto other scents, it kept going towards the camp.

She hung there, her tail wound around the treetrunk, her heart beating like a rabbit's. Faunus were already swarming through the camp, most only half-dressed, all carrying weapons. Brand howled his own challenge. Even the faceless man was there, bellowing curses and brandishing the horrible sword.

He was supposed to guard the evil place tonight. She had learned the pattern, she _knew _he should be there. But with the monster about...

Her wings spread wide again, as she clung to one of the highest branches. The evil place was on the other side of the camp. Everyone had gone towards the commotion. She launched herself a second time, flapping frantically as she started to fall. Then she stabilized, landing gently behind one of the tents.

The monster wouldn't last long against Brand... and she didn't think an opportunity like this would come again.

* * *

"We have a morale problem."

Sienna very nearly slapped him. "Do we, Corsac?" she gritted out. "I hadn't noticed."

Brand sat on his hindquarters, watching the corpse of the Ursa crumble away. Without him, they might all have died. Harbinger had helped, of course, but he was still young. The veteran fire dragon had hardly batted an eye at a gigantic monster bearing down on him, and had killed the thing in minutes.

It was the first Grimm that had attacked their camp in a long time. Part of the problem was the chaos that had erupted elsewhere in Vale. With the council struggling to clamp down on their power, and most of the Riders in the area still shaken by the fall of Beacon, Grimm populations were exploding. But she wasn't about to kid herself—the _far _bigger issue was food. Namely, their lack of it.

She'd put guards on the supply tents, but the saboteur had managed to wreak havoc on their food stores in a very short period of time. A resupply was on its way... but it took time to haul wagons full of cans into the middle of the woods. Their people were hungry. Hunger bred negativity, and that drew Grimm. She was sure the Ursa wouldn't be the last.

"We should post scouts around the perimeter of the camp," she decided. "At least we'll be able to see it coming next time."

"It wasn't exactly subtle," the Lieutenant pointed out, as he slipped his massive chainsaw through his belt.

"Not _all _of them will be kind enough to roar so loud they'd wake the dead."

"I agree," Corsac said. "But morale will only drop if we force them to stay awake all night."

She rolled her eyes. "Do shifts, then. And get as many as you can with nocturnal traits to deal with the night hours. That should help."

"We aren't fools, Sienna." Fennec's tone was light and joking, but his twitching ears betrayed his irritation.

Sienna was about to try to soothe his bruised ego when her scroll went off. Cinder's name flashed across the screen. _Oh, hell._

She raised the scroll to her ear. "What?"

"Try lightning Dust with fire. Only a trace of fire, less than a tenth of a percent."

She blinked. "How did you—"

"Just do it."

The line went dead. It was the shortest, and thus most pleasant conversation she'd ever had with Cinder. Sienna recounted the message.

"She has another scientist," Corsac decided. "There's no other explanation."

"We're out of time," his brother agreed.

"Not yet." Sienna's mind raced. "If she isn't telling us that, then she must plan to keep partnering with us a while longer."

"We're going to keep bowing and scraping to these humans?" The Lieutenant's mask gave nothing away, but Sienna could hear the scowl in his voice.

"Of course not. I'm saying we still have time for our exit strategy." Sienna smirked. "We'll inject as many with that combination as we can, since it's more likely to be viable, and keep all but one. As for the rest of the eggs... let's say we tell her about half the healthy ones. The rest... well. This sabotage problem is getting out of hand."

They shared a few glances. It had, in fact, been weeks since the last act of sabotage. The guards on the tent had worked wonders—

There was a sharp _crack, _followed by a rumble of thunder. Very _loud _thunder. The sky above them was completely cloudless.

Sienna sprinted to the lab, but was far too late—by the time she arrived, there was a smoking crater a few dozen yards behind it, and no sign of the intruder. The air stank of ozone. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she waited for one of the technicians to dart inside and confirm what she already suspected.

Every single vial of lightning Dust had just gone off.

She took a few deep, calming breaths. Then, in a flash of inspiration, she rounded on the technician. She hadn't paid much attention to the hybrid the traitor had stolen, but she did know a few things about him. "Prepare an injection. Gravity and earth dust—let's say... one twentieth of a percent of earth." Actually, on second thought... "If we have the Dust for it, make more. Vary the proportion of earth, but keep it under one percent."

When he nodded and ducked back inside, she rounded on the Lieutenant. "Plan a raid as soon as you can."

"It'll be harder to get lightning," he said. "Most of it gets used to power the city grid."

"Can we take some of that?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. I'll see what I can do."

"Excellent. Thank you." He strode off, leaving her with the Albains.

Corsac was giving her a strange look. "Do you have any objections?" she asked impatiently.

"No. But we need to discuss the saboteur."

"We do." She scowled at the crater. "Now we know that whoever it was, they weren't in the group that fought the Ursa... which was almost everyone. We can ask around, see who was missing—"

"If it was one of us in the camp."

"What do you mean, if? They know far too much about us for it to be anything else."

Fennec spoke up, his ears twitching. "You sent sister Ilia away from the camp."

"I did."

"She has... unfortunate associations."

"You mean Blake Belladonna," Sienna said. "I know. That's why she was the best person for the job."

"You sent her to speak to the traitor?" Corsac hissed. "Are you _mad?"_

"We know that Blake has no issues with abandoning a cause," Sienna said dryly. "I sent Ilia to give her a push. The more we can weaken Cinder, the better."

Fennec's eyes glittered. "And you are sure that she went?"

The hair on the back of her neck stood up. "What are you suggesting, exactly?"

"Only that sister Ilia could easily pass unseen." Corsac's tail flicked back and forth as he spoke. "No one should be above suspicion."

Sienna scowled. "She's been a loyal member of the Fang for years."

"Of course," Fennac crooned.

Corsac flashed an oily smile. "Sleep on it. That's all we ask."

Sienna left them with ugly questions stirring in her mind, and a headache pounding at her temples.

* * *

Something rocketed around the side of a cabin and slammed into Yang, knocking her into the wall. Fang reared, baring his fangs in response to the new threat... only to pull up short when Specter trotted up to them. The white blur that had hit his rider turned out to be Weiss.

"Whoa!" Yang reached out to steady them both. "Are you—"

Weiss grabbed her by the wrist and took off again, dragging her in her wake. Fang barked indignantly and barreled after them, as Yang yelped and blurted out, "What the—?"

"No time," Weiss snapped. "Just run."

The four of them crashed into Blake and Pit in almost the same way. Blake did a double-take, her face turning very pale. "Did he do something?" she demanded. "What's going on?"

"We're leaving. Now. I'll explain when we have more people."

Fang snorted irritably. He was tired of dashing around the camp without knowing what was going on. "Do you know what she's panicking about?" he asked Specter, but the ice dragon kept his head down and ignored the question. Fang grumbled under his breath, but let it drop.

Most of the others were in the woods around the valley, but they still weren't hard to find. Weiss started to explain in between gasps for breath.

"Doctor Watts... in his lab... there was a note about... glycinamide."

"What _language _is that even?" Yang burst out.

"It's a chemical." Weiss leaned against Specter's side. He continued to stare fixedly into the woods. Fang craned his neck to look in the same direction, but there was nothing there.

Weiss pulled a crumpled scrap of paper out of her pocket. "It causes mutations in hatchlings."

There was a long silence. At first, Fang was just confused. Then he looked from Twiggy, to Nimbus, to Ao Guang...

"Our year had so many problems," Blake said, horror creeping into her voice.

Weiss' expression was grim. "Exactly. I didn't understand at first, Watts has no motive... but Cinder got a lot of rogue students out of this."

Jaune swore softly. "So they... they _did _this? On purpose?"

"If I'm right." Weiss swallowed, glancing over her shoulder towards the valley. "And... I think he knows that I know."

_"Shit." _Yang pressed her hands to her face. "We have to get out of here. Like... _now."_

"Does anybody have anything in the cabins they can't go without?" Sun asked.

Scarlet winced. "Does... all our gear count?"

"Okay." Sun ran a hand through his hair. "Okay. Our team can grab all that stuff."

"We'll get the dragons saddled," Jaune offered.

"And we'll try to warn everyone else," Ruby finished. "Our professors, the pit dragons—Mercury's still out on that mission, but I'll find Emerald—"

"Ruby..." Weiss said, very carefully. "She might not..."

"She doesn't know about this. I'm sure she doesn't." Ruby swung herself onto Storm's back.

Fang trotted after them, with Pit and Specter on either side of him. Pit looked around, trying to spot a pit dragon in the trees—they hadn't managed to find any of them yet. Specter mostly watched the others.

"Are you okay?" Fang asked him. "The mad scientist guy didn't try to hurt you and Weiss, did he?"

Specter looked away and didn't answer.

* * *

Finding their professors was easy. Ruby checked the cabin they usually stayed in and almost tripped over Professor Port, who was doing push-ups in the middle of the room. Professor Goodwitch stood nearby, flipping through what looked like a textbook.

"We have to go!" Ruby blurted out.

Goodwitch glanced up, startled. "Miss Rose? Is something the matter?"

Instead of explaining everything all over again, Weiss shoved the scrap of paper into her hands. She read it quickly. Then she was silent for a few seconds, her face looking more and more like a stormcloud. _"Bastards," _she spat. "Let's move."

Port jumped. "Glynda? What's—"

"I'll explain later."

He shrugged and started packing his things.

They spent almost fifteen minutes sprinting in every direction, looking for the pit dragons. "Tumbleweed!" Ruby shouted. "Inkwell! Glory! Anyone?!"

Yang cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hey Crucible! We made a saddle for you!"

When he didn't jump out of the trees and try to set them on fire, she slumped. "Yeah, this isn't working."

"We'll find Emerald first," Ruby decided. "Then we can try again."

"We don't have _time." _Weiss glanced over her shoulder. "If everyone knew this, no one would follow Cinder. She knows that. She might _kill _us over this, we have to go!"

Ruby squeezed her eyes shut. "I know! I just... I have to talk to Emerald." She did her best to ignore the pained looks her friends gave her.

She didn't find Emerald—Emerald found her.

"I heard you shouting," she said, as she and Jade walked out from between two cabins. "Is everything okay?"

Ruby looked down. "We have to go."

"Go?"

"Away. For good. We found something... really bad."

"What?" Emerald backed up a step. "But you—"

"Watts was working with something, um..." She glanced at Weiss. "Some chemical that causes problems for hatchlings. The only reason Cinder's plans got this far was that there were so many students with dragons that would be culled, and—"

"So you think she did it on purpose?" Emerald stared at her. "She's trying to _help,_ not kill them! What the fuck is _wrong _with you?"

"Hey!" Yang jabbed a finger at her. "This isn't exactly coming out of nowhere. First the things with the White Fang, and now this?"

"Ask her, then! I'm sure there's a reason!"

Ruby glanced behind her. Weiss and Blake were both shaking their heads, while Yang glared at Emerald. "I don't..."

"Where are the pit dragons."

"What?" Emerald stared at Blake. "What are you talking about?"

Blake's voice stayed quiet. "We've been trying to find them for a while now. They go out hunting, but there's always at least a few nearby. Where are they?"

"They're with Cinder. She had Strike ask them, they were eating too much game right around here so she took them further away. It's just hard to feed them. Not a big deal."

"And when did she say this?" Blake was still calm, almost sad.

"About half an hour ago. _Why?"_

Weiss gave a stiff nod. "That's right after I left."

"So?" Emerald glared at them. "I can't believe you. I can't _fucking _believe you! You're all going to run off because of a coincidence?"

Ruby squeezed Storm's shoulders. "We have to," she mumbled.

It took a moment for her to dare to look up. She wished she hadn't—the betrayed look on Emerald's face was somehow worse than realizing Cinder had been tricking them. "It's not just one coincidence. She keeps hiding things, and they're _always _bad! Every time, we talk about it and we decide that maybe she has her reasons and we'll stick around until the next thing, but... this is too much. We can't stay."

"Then go," Emerald snapped. "Get the fuck out of here."

"You're not going to try and stop us?" Yang sat up in Fang's saddle, as if daring her to try.

"No." Emerald turned away from them. "There's almost twenty of you. I'm not stupid."

"We wouldn't..." Ruby tried to say, and chocked on the last words. _We wouldn't hurt you._ But that was what they were doing now, wasn't it?

They met up with the others in the woods, and minutes later they were on their way. No one followed them. No one tried to stop them. Ruby pressed her face against Storm's neck, and jumped when she met cold steel instead.

"Elevated stress levels detected," Penny said. "Enabling combat—"

Ruby wiped her face on her sleeve. "Penny, don't."

"You seem upset. Are you sure you aren't in danger?"

"...Different kind of upset, Penny."

"Oh."

The metal plate retracted, the light blinking yellow and red the way it did when Penny was thinking hard about something. Ruby was just glad to rest her forehead against warm scales. She'd done the right thing. For Storm, and all the hatchlings that had been born at risk of culling, and Tornado, who Cinder might as well have killed herself.

She really wished doing the right thing didn't make her feel so guilty.

* * *

**Glycinamide is a real thing, though it obviously isn't used with Dust. It's a buffer solution, which means it's resistant to changes in pH, which seemed about as similar to what I wanted the made-up chemical to do as I was gonna get, considering we don't have any magic around here...**


	47. Frostbite

**Hello again! Today, Neo drops some eaves and Specter has no words.**

* * *

**47\. Frostbite**

* * *

Neo could tell something was wrong the instant she and Mercury returned to camp. It was too empty, for one thing. A few of the pit dragons ranged through the woods, but she couldn't see any of the students or their dragons. There was a strange tension in the air. Roman noticed them through one of the windows and came to greet them.

"Where the fuck is everyone?" Mercury demanded. "Weren't they supposed to get here before us?"

"Word is, they bolted."

Mercury's eyebrows shot up. "How'd they get cold feet on _that _job?"

"Beats me." There was a familiar glint in Roman's eyes. "Anyway, don't you have a queen bee to see?"

He glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah. Do you know where Emerald is?"

"Behind the cabins. As far as I can tell, she's trying to set them on fire with her mind." Roman kept up his grin until the boy was out of sight. Then it melted away, replaced with a troubled frown. "There's something off about this."

Neo gave him her best _no shit _expression.

Roman drew her into one of the cabins and shut the door firmly behind him. Then, after another cautious look around, he switched to signing. "Cinder and Arthur are in his lab. You can use the air vents."

"You're really worried about this, aren't you?"

"Those kids were pretty gung-ho. Then they up and leave with no warning? Cinder sent the pit dragons away at the same time, they got back just before you did. Fishy doesn't really cover it."

"Fine. But I'm doing this my way."

Her way did not involve air vents. It was way easier and less claustrophobic to slip in through the back door. Watts' lab had two rooms, and it only took a quick glance through the windows to find out which one he and Cinder were in. Roman watched too many movies, that was his problem.

She pressed her ear to the door, tensed and ready to dive behind a desk if she heard them coming towards her. At first she thought she'd missed her chance—the other room was silent. Then, Cinder's voice. "You say that like they ran off out of the blue. What did they _find, _Watts?"

"I can't be sure. Something in my lab, and I assume based on her reaction it had something to do with our little act of sabotage."

"Why didn't you _hide it better?"_ Cinder snapped.

"I did," Watts replied testily. "Anything really sensitive, I keep under lock and key."

"Obviously not everything."

"There are a few mentions of the chemical," he admitted. "Nothing anyone out of the loop would understand—"

"You didn't think a Schnee might happen to recognize something?"

"They think of it as old, useless, and _boring._ You stole more than ten drums and no one cared enough to go looking."

"That isn't the _point, _Watts!"

"Of course not," he agreed. "On a more pertinent note—they know far too much. What are you going to do about it?"

"We can't exactly hunt them down. There's too many of them."

Watts' voice turned smug. "I told you not to bring on so many at once."

"...You're fired."

"No, I'm not. You need me. If your pets had been able to follow through, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place."

The next thing she heard was the other door slamming shut behind Cinder. Neo slid under the desk instinctively at the sound, and froze when her fingers brushed against a small rug. She rolled her eyes. Peeling up one corner revealed that yes, there was a keyhole hidden underneath it. Obviously Watts had never been part of a competent burglary—nobody put rugs where no one would see them unless they were hiding a safe.

Whatever was in there, it wasn't worth the time it would take to break in. Especially when she could hear Doctor Watts' heavy footsteps moving towards the door. As she slipped out of the building, she caught his last words. "If _you _won't do anything..."

* * *

Hours later they still flew in an empty sky. Storm almost wished someone would chase them, just so she could stop anticipating it.

_Pursuit is unlikely,_ Penny told her. _We have a significant numerical advantage. I estimate the probability to be less than one in fifty._

_I know. _Storm kept her eyes on the horizon. _It's just... weird._

They'd been mostly silent up until now, trying mostly to put as much distance between themselves and Cinder as they could. Twiggy was the first to ask the question that they were all thinking.

"What do we do now?"

Pepper flicked an ear back towards them. She was starting to look a little tired, mostly because she was carrying both Pyrrha and Professor Goodwitch, as well as her own rider. "We will rest soon," she said. "Then we can all decide together."

"Are we going back to Raven?" Fang wanted to know.

No one had an answer.

"What about the pit dragons?" asked Zircon.

No one knew that, either.

Storm whined, a small sound that the wind ripped away before it got any further than her own ears. She tried to comfort herself by watching the landscape below them—rolling hills covered with trees, glittering ribbons of water winding this way and that... it was all so much more wild-looking than anything she'd grown up with at Beacon. From the air, it almost looked like nothing was wrong. No Grimm, no council, no Cinder.

She would have shaken her head, if she wasn't busy flying. Enough gloomy stuff! All of them had made it out, no one was even _scratched. _Maybe they couldn't stay with Cinder, but it was better to find that out sooner rather than later. It wasn't even like their trip here had been wasted—they'd freed Pearl and Paprika and the other prisoners, and Cinder had returned Penny. _This is good._

_It really is,_ Penny agreed. _I don't have enough data to say for sure, but it seems close to the optimal outcome._

_I guess..._ Now that she was thinking about it like that, Storm felt a pang of guilt. _Ruby will be sad, though._

_Why?_

_She wanted Emerald to come with us._

_...I don't understand._

_Neither do I, really. But she's nice, and now we might have to fight her._

Penny considered that for a moment. _I will be sure to enable nonlethal parameters if we encounter Emerald again._

Storm felt a little better. It didn't change much, she would've been careful not to hurt Emerald anyway... but it was nice to remember they'd gained a friend, as well as losing one. And it wasn't the kind of loss that was permanent, either—they could convince her. Eventually. Or, well, Ruby could.

_Thanks, Penny._

She felt the other presence recede a bit, as Penny concentrated on the scenery underneath them instead of talking. Normally she could do both, but at half power she was... a little bit sleepy, or maybe just smaller. Storm felt a warm bubble of contentment radiating from her as she watched through the dragon's eyes.

As they passed over increasingly hilly, mountainous land, Storm glanced around at the others. The JNPR dragons were clustered around Pepper, so that they would be close to Pyrrha, while the SSSN dragons seemed like they were talking to one another about what to do next. She didn't catch much of the conversation, because they were flying a bit behind her and she had a hard time seeing or hearing them very well.

Pit's freckles were glowing—he'd started using his powers on and off while flying, to give his wings a break in mid-air. He noticed her looking and drifted close enough for them to touch wingtips. Fang, a bit above her and to the left, was looking at... Specter.

He seemed fine—but Storm suddenly remembered how quiet he'd been all day. He and Weiss had been in the Doctor's lab together, hadn't they? Storm dropped down so that she was close enough to talk.

"Are you okay?"

No reaction.

"Hey!" Fang called out. "Remnant to Prince Fusspot!"

Nothing.

Storm drew even closer. She had to be careful to synchronize her wingbeats to his, so she didn't accidentally knock into him. He finally turned to look at her. His black eyes, always striking, had gone eerily blank. Like he could see right through her.

"Specter?"

He listed sharply to one side. She yelped as their wings tangled together. "Specter! What's—"

_Pain._

Wind whipped around her as she fell. Penny shouted commands for herself, frantically trying to spread armor over Storm's wing joint. Specter's needle-sharp teeth had already sunk to the bone. Frost crawled across her scales. The pain ebbed away. The ground rushed up to meet them.

* * *

Ruby was screaming. Weiss and Fang were screaming. It seemed to Pit like _everyone _was screaming—everyone except for Specter. He was perfectly, horribly calm, even as he and Storm tumbled from the sky.

"Stop it!" Weiss stood up in the saddle and yanked on the reins. "What are you _doing?!"_

Fang dove in close and reached for one of Storm's flailing forelegs. She yelped and tried to dodge. "Grab on!" he shouted. As soon as she realized he was trying to help, she caught hold of his tail and clung to it. He flapped hard, struggling to slow their fall.

Pit did what he could to help. He concentrated on his powers with everything he had, letting himself drop along with them. It was too much—the three of them combined weighed more than Pepper did, and Fang wasn't as strong a flier as Storm.

Weiss hadn't stopped shouting, ordering Specter to stop and tugging uselessly at his spines. Mist rose from his scales. She flinched away, slipped, teetered for an instant on the edge of falling. He twisted, and Pit's stomach sank—he could see the instant she lost her balance, flipping backwards over the end of the saddle.

"Dive!" Blake shouted over the wind. He reached out with his powers, drawing Weiss closer until his rider could lean out of the saddle and grab hold of her' wrist.

Mountains rose below them like jagged teeth about to snap shut. Above were the others, some diving down to try and help, others circling and shrieking in alarm. There wasn't time, they were still falling too fast. His powers strained against gravity, and he howled with the effort, and for an instant it felt as though they might finally stabilize—

Specter's tail whipped through the air, heading straight for Pit's back. He tried to twist to one side to protect Blake and Weiss, but there wasn't _time_—and Fang struck, catching it in his teeth and holding it there. Yang ripped herself free of the straps on her saddle and climbed up Fang's neck so that she could thrust an arm into the melee, grabbing Ruby by the shoulder.

Mountaintops shot past them. Pit got close enough to grab the ice dragon's neck in his teeth. He pulled as hard as he dared, trying to break his grip without hurting him, but then Specter stuck out a wing and it caught the wind and all four of them were _spinning._

Something smashed into Pit's shoulder. His howl mixed with the sound of splintering wood, and colors blurred as their spin turned into a full nose-over-tail tumble. He caught a glimpse of pine branches outlined against a blue sky, then of the ground littered with a carpet of orange needles, hurtling towards him.

There was no time for anything, except to fling himself free of the tangle and angle himself so that he would hit the ground belly-first. Pit squeezed his eyes shut and let the earth smash into him.

* * *

_This can't be happening._

Weiss watched in a numb daze as Specter reared up onto his hind legs. His teeth were red.

Blake dragged her out of the saddle. She only registered the motion when her feet hit the ground. The moment they were safely off his back, Pit charged, his freckles shining like silver stars. Spines rose on the back of Specter's neck. He screeched and clawed at Pit, his beautiful black eyes cold and blank. Like a wild animal.

That roused her. "Stop it!" she shouted, her voice hoarse with past failures. Specter didn't even notice. Storm crawled away, one wing dragging in the dirt. Fang leaped over her to grapple her dragon's other side, he and Pit working together to try and wrestle him to the ground.

Was _this _what Father had meant?

Weiss started to run. Blake shouted something unimportant and tried to grab her wrist. Specter loomed over her, suddenly so much bigger than she remembered, thrashing and snapping at everything in his reach. Pearly mist billowed around him, cracking the other dragons' scales.

She remembered Glacier lunging at her, remembered his horrible, haunted wail—but this was Specter. He'd curled up in her lap while she fed him frozen apple slices. He wouldn't hurt her. If she could just reach out and touch him, she _knew _he'd stop.

"Specter, it's me." Weiss raised her hands, taking a few slow, careful steps. "It's going to be alright. Just... just stay still. _Please."_

His struggles slowed. His eyes fixed on her. Hardly daring to breathe, she moved forward—and noticed, too late, the frigid bite in the air. Her dragon, her _partner, _blew a cloud of deadly mist right at her.

There was a flash of light. Weiss threw an arm over her face to protect it from a surge of heat. When she opened her eyes, Pepper stood between her and Specter, and steam rose from grass that had been flash-frozen and scorched to a crisp in less than a second. The fire had passed just a few feet in front of her, blocking the attack that would have killed her.

This time, when Blake caught her left arm and Yang grabbed hold of her right, she didn't resist.

Dragons were all around them, now. Huo jumped headfirst into the fight. A crowd formed around Storm, blocking her from Specter's sight, while Ruby knelt by her head and murmured soothing words in her ear.

Specter didn't stop struggling, even when he was pinned under the weight of four other dragons. He scratched at their faces, whipped his tail across their backs, formed icicles on their scales. They kept him still, barely. It was hard to do without hurting him... especially when he obviously didn't care if he hurt _them._

Weiss stared helplessly at the fight. Her mind was jammed, stuck on the simple fact that _Specter wouldn't do this._ There had to be a reason. He couldn't be like Tornado—there would have been signs! Had she missed something? Had she done something wrong, like Father had with Glacier?

Then, as Specter snapped at Huo's shoulder, his head twisted to one side. Sunlight glinted off something buried in his frills. Something _metal._

Her teammates' grips had slackened when she stopped fighting them. Weiss twisted free, making a mental note to apologize later for elbowing Yang in the stomach. If she didn't die in the next few minutes.

"Hold him still!" she shouted. They were already trying, she knew, but at her words Pit let out a low groan, and Specter's body flattened against the ground as if a massive weight pressed down on him. Weiss clambered onto Fang's back, hauled herself up by one of his spines, and jumped from him to Pit. His head came up in surprise as she climbed his neck. When she reached his head she hung there for an instant—and let go.

When she was a little girl, she'd once wheedled Winter into going on a walk with her in the middle of January. It had been pitch dark out, the air so cold that every breath burned her insides. She had stuffed her snow-soaked gloves into her pockets. There had been a wrought-iron fence, beautifully sculpted, and she'd reached out—

—curled her hands around Specter's horns. The feeling was the same. Everywhere her bare skin touched him, the cold _burned._ She clung to him as he twisted and bucked, snatched at the metal object nestled into his frills. Missed. Tried again, grabbed it. Pulled... but it was fixed to his scales.

On the ground, a lot of people were shouting at her—but her eyes met Blake's. She must have seen what Weiss had, because she scooped a rock off the ground and called out, "Here!"

Weiss caught it one-handed, drew her arm back, and brought it down on the tiny metal plate with all her strength. Once. Twice. Again and again, until it dented and sparked and fell away. It hit the ground with a muted thud.

And after that... silence.


	48. Blame

***Pokes head out of shoe* Er, hello! And happy Friday! This chapter there are a lot of questions, very few answers, and a broken device to consider.**

* * *

**48\. Blame**

* * *

Ruby buried her face in the delicate frills behind Storm's jaw. She stayed there as Specter went quiet and limp, and the sounds of fighting faded away. Then longer, her cheek pressing against warm scales. She didn't want to look—but when her dragon whimpered in her ear, she squared her jaw and pulled away.

"Stay still for me," she murmured, running a soothing hand over Storm's forehead. Then she forced herself to turn and kneel beside the injured wing.

It wasn't bleeding. That gave her hope—maybe it wasn't as bad as it had _felt _as they fell. But when she looked closer, she saw that it was clean not because the bite hadn't been deep, but because it had been _frozen._

She looked around helplessly. "I don't know what to do," she said, feeling like she was listening to someone else talk. "Do... do dragons get frostbite?"

Weiss stumbled over. She paused when she got close, as if she wasn't sure she'd be welcome. Her face was pale where it wasn't red and chapped from the cold. While she hovered uncertainly, Yang and Blake crowded in on either side of Ruby.

"It looks like it's stopping the bleeding," Blake said, her voice shaky with uncertainty. "I'm just... not sure if that's a good thing or not."

"I—" Weiss stopped abruptly, like she'd just bitten her tongue.

Ruby blinked. It occurred to her that she should probably... "It's not your fault."

Weiss hesitated a little longer, then said, "I think... I think it's a bad idea to leave it like that. Blood won't be able to get to the rest of the wing."

"That is correct."

Ruby had never been so glad to hear Professor Goodwitch's voice. She was crisp and professional as always as she crouched to examine the injury. Professor Port stood next to her, his mustache twitching nervously.

Goodwitch snapped her fingers and said, "Bandages."

"I have some in my bag," Blake told her, and scrambled to get them.

Storm struggled weakly when Fang pressed his nose to the wound, warming it with his powers. Ruby held her head in her lap, wrapping her arms around her snout and whispering soothing nonsense. Pit licked and nuzzled at her side. Goodwitch and Port worked on her wing, with Yang and Blake running to fetch supplies for them whenever they asked. Weiss retreated to Specter, who hung slack from the grip of Pepper and Huo.

Soon the wing was bandaged and tied into a clumsy sling, using a length of rope Nora had in her pack. Ruby tried not to look at the spot where the wing had rested on the forest floor—Storm had bled a lot when the ice thawed out.

"You're the best dragon in the world," Ruby told her, pressing their cheeks together so that she could speak into her ear.

"It hurts," Storm said through Penny. "I don't understand."

Someone cleared his throat. Ruby looked up—it was Ren. He held something in his hand, the metal object Weiss had smashed to pieces. "I think this is the culprit."

The frame was ugly and haphazard-looking, even for something that had just been clobbered by a rock. Its inner electronics were a different story—Ruby might have been impressed if she hadn't known what they'd just done to Storm... and to Specter. She knew a prototype when she saw one.

"Penny? Is that... is it like you?"

Penny's light blinked red and yellow. "It appears to be of a similar design," she said, after a long pause, "but that shouldn't be possible."

"Why not?" Weiss demanded. "And who—" she cut off with a snarl. _"Watts."_

"No." Penny's light went red again. "Doctor Watts was not involved in my design process."

Blake glanced up from where she had been adjusting Storm's bandages. "Well... Watts did have access to her, um... circuits. Could he have built something similar?"

There was a long, tense silence. Then, finally, "He would have needed to go through my code."

Ruby shuddered. She hugged Storm's head again, this time making sure to wrap one arm around Penny's chassis.

Professor Goodwitch spoke up, looking grim. "You should all check your dragons. Thoroughly."

Weiss looked up, her jaw very tight. "As a precaution, yes... but I think I remember when this happened. Watts touched Specter's head, and he—I remember he didn't like it. I thought it was just that he was picking up on how anxious I was, but..." Her eyes dropped to her feet. "I should have realized."

Blake bumped her with her shoulder. "You couldn't have predicted _this._ Nobody could."

Storm nuzzled further into Ruby's lap. One eye blinked open.

"Storm says that Specter couldn't talk," Penny reported. "That's why she was worried. Even when she asked him a question, he wouldn't say anything." Her light blinked yellow. "Translation is one of my primary functions."

"Okay, so..." Sun glanced at Huo. "Can you guys let us know if someone is acting weird? Especially if they're not talking?"

Huo gave him a flat look.

"I'm taking that as a yes." Sun draped himself over his dragon's neck and started checking behind his ears. Everyone was looked over, even though there wasn't anywhere to hide a metal plate like that on earth or fire dragons. No other devices turned up. Fang hissed at the broken one and melted it into so much slag.

The others started talking. Plans for the future, speculation about the device... words that turned into useless buzzing after a few minutes. Ruby stayed kneeling by Storm's head, pressing a cheek against her scales. Yang sat with her and rubbed her back.

Only after Storm was fast asleep did she find the courage to look up at her professors and ask, "How bad is it?"

She soon discovered that seeing a soft, sympathetic look on Professor Goodwitch's face was a lot scarier than the usual stern one. "That... depends. We cleaned the wound as well as we could, and dragons are resistant to infection. I doubt she'll get any worse. But the bite is deep, it hit a major joint, and being frozen didn't do it any favors. It will be months before it heals, at least. After that, we'll have to see how well she can move it, and how much strength can be built back up."

Ruby felt a throbbing pain start behind her eyes. All the information she'd wanted was there, but it kept slipping away like wet soap, and she couldn't put it together. Yang's arm came up to wrap around her shoulders. "Will she be able to fly again?" she asked, cutting to the heart of it.

"Almost certainly," Port said. Goodwitch glanced at him once, sharp, and Ruby's next swallow turned tight and painful.

"Healing will take time," Goodwitch added, still in that careful tone. "It's important to manage your expectations. She won't be able able to handle as much weight as she otherwise would. It _likely _won't be so extreme that she can't carry you, but we can't say for certain."

"Oh." Ruby felt something hot drop onto the back of her hand and wiped her eyes. And then she was crying, which was _horrible_ because Storm was right here, her ears twitching as she slept, and Professor Goodwitch was watching her. Pyrrha, too, she and Jaune were sitting a little ways away with Twiggy. Just Twiggy.

"She's okay," she choked out later, when it was only Yang there next to her. "I shouldn't be so..."

Yang kissed the top of her head. "Flying with Storm is important too. Don't do that to yourself, okay? Don't feel guilty for being scared."

* * *

"Um." Neptune winced when people looked at him. "Not to be that guy, but... shouldn't we be getting the hell out of here?"

"Not yet," Professor Goodwitch said, looking up from where she was tending to Storm. "She'll need time to recover, and I don't want her moving this wing until we're absolutely sure it's thawed out."

Neptune deflated and sat back down, his back to Nymph's paw. "Right. Yeah."

Scarlet made a face. "I don't want to be that guy either, but... go _where?"_

Jaune glanced over his shoulder at where Yang and Ruby were huddled next to Storm and said, careful to keep his voice low, "...Raven?"

"Are we sure she'd side with us over Cinder?" Neptune asked. "We don't really have _proof."_

Pyrrha sat up a little straighter where she was wedged between Jaune and one of Twiggy's paws. "I'm not sure if it matters right now. We'll have to get out of these woods first. On foot."

"Vacuo's not... _super _far away," Sun said. "Relative to... all the other kingdoms."

Scarlet groaned and flopped backwards onto Sage.

"Hey." Jaune tried for an upbeat grin. Neptune tried and failed to be convinced. "At least their plan didn't work. We destroyed that mind-control thing."

Sage shot him an apologetic look. "I don't know about that. They know they can't _stop _us... but make it so that we have to walk all the way to civilization or else leave someone behind? Suddenly they have a lot more time to figure out their next move."

Ren nodded gravely. "If he wanted to kill us, he could have forced Specter to attack Ruby instead."

Neptune felt a sudden, powerful longing for Oobleck's grueling essays.

"Well," Sun said, clapping his hands together. "We're stuck here for now, and it's going to be dark in a few hours anyway. How about we get some rest? We can figure out what to do in the morning."

Their impromptu war council was eager to disband. Neptune settled next to Sun, right in the crook of Huo's elbow. They were quiet for a while. He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't be stating the obvious, or reminding them of how screwed they were, or both.

"This sucks," Sun said, eventually. Stating the obvious... but Neptune was glad he'd broken the silence.

"Royally," he agreed.

Nymph rumbled low in her chest and draped a wing over all three of them. Huo didn't even snap at her. He just curled his tail over hers and put his head down next to Sun. The fading sunlight turned blue under their scaly roof, and the silver spots on the wing's membrane stood out like huge stars.

Sun sighed and slumped against Huo's side, his shoulder pressing against Neptune's. "I feel like such a moron."

Neptune hadn't been as furious or suspicious as some, but he'd been expecting another shoe to drop. He just... hadn't thought it'd be a steel-toed boot that would nail them right between the eyes. Sun, who'd been his usual optimistic self, was probably feeling a lot more thrown.

"You're not a moron. She fooled all of us."

"Yeah, I know. Especially me. Which is why I feel like a moron."

"I mean, you _can _be," Neptune said, grinning. "Like when you almost named your dragon Daddy's Little Badass."

Sun was quick to take mock-offense. "I was gonna call him Badass for short. That's _totally _different."

"Sure it is."

"It's still a good nickname!"

Huo snorted.

"Whatever. Questionable naming choices aside, you couldn't have seen this coming. We _all_ got played by the scary lady who's been playing pretty much _everyone _for years."

"Okay, when you put it like that it stings my pride a little less."

"Good."

"...It still sucks."

Neptune couldn't argue with that, so he didn't try. He just sat with his knees huddled to his chest, his back against Huo's warm side, his hair getting all mussed where it rubbed against Nymph's wing.

Minutes later, when Sun leaned his head on his shoulder, he tried not to freeze up too badly. He half-expected his stupidly perceptive dragon to give him another one of those _looks._ She didn't. She purred slowly, lulling them both into a peaceful daze.

* * *

Specter wanted to hide.

He tucked his head under his wings, winding himself into a tighter and tighter ball until his limbs and tail started to ache. There was a horrible burning knot in his belly. It made him feel small and shriveled and wretched. No one was nearby, except for Pepper, because she wanted to make sure he wouldn't hurt anyone else. He was glad.

Then there was a light touch on his back. He recognized Weiss' hand immediately. He poked his head out from under his wing and let her stroke his nose, even though he didn't deserve to feel better.

"It's alright, now," she murmured. "That thing is gone."

Specter could still see a glint of metal, abandoned on the forest floor a few yards away. His ears went back. Weiss' hand moved to his head frills, smoothing the place where the machine had been. He tried not to flinch, but some of them had gotten in the way when she smashed the device with a rock, and it stung.

To his horror, her breathing hitched. "I'm _so _sorry..."

"Nno!" Specter scrambled to comfort her. His nose touched her arm, and then it was her turn to wince. There were places where her skin was angry and raw from touching his scales. Her palms were bleeding.

"Don't," she said, curling her hands to hide them. "This is—it's _my _fault, not yours. I knew Watts did something. I should have _checked."_

Specter whined. That wasn't right, he was the one who had gotten scared and let the doctor realize they knew! But he had no idea how he'd say that in a way she'd understand...

"Enough!"

He squeaked, curling protectively around Weiss, but it was only Pepper. She gave them a stern look. "Both of you are being ridiculous. Specter, it isn't your fault that monster did that to you." Then, this time in the riders' language, "Ice. No."

Weiss looked down at her lap. "I'm sorry, I—"

"Nno. 'Ock-tor bad. Ice gud. 'Ek-trr gud."

But hadn't Specter—

"Stop it, youngling," Pepper said, exasperated. "The only people to blame here are the ones who built that _thing."_ She spat smoke in the general direction of the broken machine. Then, more gently, "Do you remember what happened?"

Specter curled up again, now with Weiss nestled against his chest. It was much better this way. "Yes."

"Can you tell me?"

He shivered. "It was like my thoughts were too heavy to hold. My body kept moving, and I wanted it to stop, but I couldn't think to tell it that."

Pepper bobbed her head once, then licked his nose. "Thank you for telling me."

Specter extended his neck towards her as she started to walk away. "Do you think there's away to stop it? If it happens again?"

"It won't." Her nostrils flared, and fire flickered between her teeth. "I'll make sure of that. And... no, I don't think so. There was nothing you could have done."

"Oh." Specter's voice wavered. He wasn't sure if he felt more relieved or scared.

They stayed there as it got dark. Weiss never went more than a few feet away, and at least one of her hands was always pressed against his scales. He felt another pang at seeing her hands. With no idea what else to do, he followed his instincts and cleaned them as gently as he could. She tensed up at first, and he almost stopped, but then she relaxed and sighed in relief, and he thought it must have helped a little.

Pit settled in on one side of him, draping a wing over his back. "She knows it wasn't you," he said. Some of the snarl of fear and guilt in Specter's stomach loosened. Some came back when he realized that Blake had blood on her shirt.

Weiss shivered when the sun set. Blake disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a fluffy blanket to drape over her shoulders. Then, mutely, she wrapped up his rider's palms. Weiss rested them against his side when that was done. When he let slip a guilty whine, she smiled at him.

"Your scales are cool. It feels good."

His scales had been cold, that was why she was hurt in the first place. But Pit was right—that hadn't been him.

Fang stayed with Storm. The space between the two halves of their team felt like a horrible, uncrossable gulf until he turned his head and hissed, "That _bastard_ did this to both of you. Don't be guilty. Be _angry."_


	49. The Ones Who Stay

**Happy Tuesday, everyone! This chapter, a fuss is made over a little boulder.**

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**49\. The Ones Who Stay**

* * *

Shouting woke Ilia in the dead of night.

She stumbled out of her tent, still tangled in her sleeping bag and wondering where the hell she was. Justice helped with the sleeping bag—he let her lean on him while she kicked it back into her tent—and a few seconds of confused blinking settled the rest. They were in the camp. She and Justice had gotten back from their mission the night before.

That still didn't explain the shouting... but the fact that it was coming from the lab gave her an idea of what was going on. She sprinted over, Justice hot on her heels, and was about to make him wait outside when Sienna poked her head out. "Bring him. It's about time he saw it, anyway."

Ilia wanted to disagree—the middle of a hatching felt like a bad time to do this. And yet... she'd been meaning to tell him for a while now. She couldn't put it off forever.

Some of it she'd already explained, like the basics about why the White Fang had formed and what they wanted to do. This, though... she hadn't been ready, hadn't planned what to say. So she started somewhere. "You already know that we need your help to stop the humans that run everything."

Justice bobbed his head.

"Well... the problem is that they have dragons too. A lot of them. More than we ever will. So... we also need an edge that they _don't _have."

"'Arr-inn-grr."

The name was almost too mangled for her to recognize it, but with context Ilia could nod and say, "Yes, like Harbinger. Hybrids like him haven't existed for a long time, because the humans don't want them to. We're trying to bring them back."

"Gud!"

"...Yeah." Ilia glanced at the lab. "But it's hard. We don't know how they used to be made. We're doing our best to figure it out, but sometimes... sometimes we get things wrong, and the hatchlings don't survive."

Justice's ears went back, and he let out a low whine.

"I know." Ilia reached out, and he pressed his nose against her hands. "I hate it too. But it's the only way."

She watched him ponder that. Then, finally, he nodded. "Ffight. Nno 'oo-manzz, no..." He jabbed his tail towards the lab.

"Exactly." Ilia smiled at him until she remembered that they were about to go inside. "It's going to smell bad in there, but... just remember what I told you." She placed a hand on his neck to soothe him, and pushed past the flap.

Inside, Ilia did a double-take. There was a small ring of technicians, Sienna, and the Lieutenant, all gathered around an egg. She didn't understand why, at first. They didn't shout for eggs—not when so many of the dragonets that hatched from them didn't live more than a few minutes.

Except this egg was a deep indigo, scattered with flecks of pink and gold. Ilia remembered the injection Sienna had mentioned to her, the one they made based off something Cinder told them should work and a hybrid type that had been successful in Pit. It had enough of a chance to be worth the early warning.

Justice paced around the lab for a minute, rearing in an agitation. For a minute she thought she'd have to lead him back to their tent. Then Harbinger walked in, flanked by Fennec and Corsac, and bounded over to him. Soon the two of them were sniffing at the egg and barking in excitement. Ilia wondered if they could smell the difference between a healthy hatchling and a sick one.

A crack split the air. Harbinger yelped and yanked his head back. Ilia remembered his first encounter with Sienna's hybrid and had to fight down a smile. Justice pressed his face closer. She was about to tell him to be careful, in case he knocked it over, when there was another sharp sound. This time the shell broke.

Ilia moved forward, her breath caught in her throat. A brick of a snout emerged from within the egg. Violet eyes blinked open. The hatchling... Ilia thought it might have cheeped, but the sound was so much deeper than she'd expected that she jumped. It sounded a bit like a bullfrog.

Sienna elbowed the Lieutenant. He moved forward to cradle the egg in his massive hands. Corsac and Fennec leaned over his shoulders, so only Ilia caught the wistful look on Sienna's face.

It didn't take long for the dragonet to wriggle free of its prison. The rest of its body turned out to be as blunt as its head, but it was pretty in its own blocky way. Its scales were the same midnight blue as the egg, with specks of pink and gold that made it look like someone had scattered stardust across its back. Thick armored scales ran down its spine, all the way to the tip of its stubby tail. Its wings fluttered, scattering drops of egg goo on the floor. They were small. So small that they were practically vestigial. Ilia's heart sank.

"Is it—" the Lieutenant started to say. The dragonet croaked again and licked his fingers. It seemed fascinated by his mask, and pawed at it without seeming to care about its likeness to the creatures of Grimm. And Ilia watched, dumbstruck, as the big man trailed off. He drew it closer to his chest. It grabbed onto his shirt and made a noise like a twanging rubber band. "It's..." His hand shook as he stroked its back, ruffling the tiny wings.

"Will it fly?" Corsac asked, reaching out to grab one of its wings. The Lieutenant knocked him away. When his hatchling stiffened in alarm, he murmured in its ear to soothe it. Ilia was thrown all over again. Trying to associate the giant with these gestures of affection was jamming something in her brain. _Are we sure it's still him under that mask?_

"He will fly," he said, rising to his full height. The dragonet grunted in surprise. Then, once it found its balance on his shoulder, it pawed at his ear in delight and craned its neck to look around. "All dragons do."

"It might be damaged."

Ilia saw the Lieutenant's shoulders stiffen. She didn't normally like him much, but... "We don't know what a healthy gravity dragon looks like," she pointed out. "Pit was stockier than the other earth dragons, and he had only a little gravity dust in him."

"Even if it doesn't fly, we don't exactly have the luxury of being picky," added Sienna. "It's big for a hatchling, and if the deserter's hybrid is any indication, it's only going to get bigger. We can use that kind of firepower, flight or no."

Reluctantly, Corsac nodded agreement.

The Lieutenant still had eyes only for the dragonet. It gave his earlobe a gentle tug and twanged insistently.

"Hungry, little one?" Without turning his head he asked, "Where is the food?"

Sienna handed him a jar of peaches. He looked down at it, shrugged, and popped the top. At the smell of the fruit, his dragonet started to bark. Ilia jumped again. It sounded more like a baying bloodhound than a baby dragon.

A few minutes later, the jar was empty. "They are greedy things," the Lieutenant said, looking bemused.

Sienna snorted. "It didn't savage you once. Don't complain." As her amusement faded, Ilia caught another flash of hurt. She'd loved her own dragonet, as vicious as it had been.

_The next one,_ Ilia thought. _The next one will be hers, and it won't abandon her._

The Lieutenant raised his arm. His hatchling perched on his wrist, wiggling its thick tail for balance and making more croaking sounds. "I will call him Gigas," he decided.

Gigas fluttered his stunted wings and sang out like a foghorn.

* * *

"You're bigger."

She arched her back and hissed. Justice was in the woods again and talking like no time had passed. Like he hadn't disappeared.

_"Liar."_

His eyes tried to track her as she paced in and out of the deep shadows of the forest. She slipped through a few bushes. As he spun around, squinting, his neck craning this way and that, she struck. Claws raked over his shoulder.

She _was_ bigger. He didn't seem so towering anymore.

"Ouch!" Justice reared up on his hind legs, but before he could retaliate she slipped back into the trees. He sniffed the air. "Hey! I'm sorry, okay? I was gone on an important mission with my rider. I told you I'd come back to visit you, and I'm here now."

She darted out and sank her teeth into the tip of his tail. By the time he'd whipped around to look, she had already vanished again. His wings fluttered uneasily. "You're getting good at that."

More monsters had followed the first. She didn't like to send them to Brand anymore—not after the time he was asleep when they got to the camp, and a wolf creature grabbed one of the faunus' arms in its jaws. He survived, but it was too close. Too random. Instead, she learned how to fight them herself. She would slip out of the shadows and blind them, rake her claws across the backs of their knees or the napes of their necks, cutting weak places until they fell to the ground and couldn't move anymore.

They could not speak. She tried to forget that she had been lonely enough to try.

She made her own distractions. With so many Grimm in the forest, it was easy for her to fool the sentries into thinking she was one. She snapped twigs and breathed with menacing purpose, fraying their nerves until they sprinted back into the camp to send up the alarm. This was not enough for her to target the evil place, but she found other ways to slow them down. Their tents could be set on fire—all it took was dry leaves and dry air and a spark in the wrong place. Their equipment could be stolen. She buried tools, knives, and even guns in the forest.

It had only been a week or so, but Justice seemed clumsier. She flared her wings to propel herself into the trees. His head followed the noise, but she could move quickly and silently among the branches, and he soon lost her again.

"Come out," he said, snorting smoke. "I can talk to you like I promised."

She wanted to bite him again. For an instant she crouched, poised... but she was tempted. "Talk."

Justice turned towards her voice, but she squirmed away and hid somewhere else. He sat staring at empty air. "Fine," he huffed. "I'll talk. But you have to sit down, too. So we can look at each other."

Again, there was the urge to snap. But she hopped down from a low branch and landed directly behind him. He whirled around.

"Good."

She bared her teeth at him.

"No one else is missing."

They weren't. It was easier not to hurt them now that she was better at hiding.

Justice pawed the ground. "Hatchling?"

She wasn't a hatchling anymore.

Finally he settled on his haunches, and he talked. The aimless, rambling talk of before, about people and places she'd never seen, or about the faunus in the camp. She relaxed despite herself. The horrible craving still gripped her—the last talk with him hadn't satisfied it either—but the ache eased.

And of course, he had to ruin it. "I saw inside the lab."

Her ears went back. She watched him warily, sure that it wasn't true. He wasn't angry enough.

"Ilia explained everything. It's not their fault, but they need our help. _Your _help. You and Harbinger are special, and without you the humans would just—"

_"Lie."_

Justice reared his head. "It's not a _lie._ Do you think you're making things better when you take things? You're just making it all harder when we should be helping them! The sooner we make the humans stop, the sooner the lab will go away."

She stared at him. The earnest perk of his ears, the anxious twitching in his tail, the wide and trusting eyes... "Stupid," she spat.

He bristled. "I'm not _stupid._ I could smell what happened in there just like you could, but without that lab you wouldn't even _be _here!" He said it like she was a _good _thing they'd done.

"Kill many. One life. _Bad."_

"Things are getting better. The egg today was—" and he stopped, his eyes huge. She stared back at him. Then Justice turned on his heel and fled.

She caught up to him and pinned his tail beneath her claws. "Where?"

"No!" He pulled away from her. "You have to go away now. I shouldn't have said that."

"Not dead." He wouldn't have mentioned it if it were. _"Where?"_

Justice ran away instead of answering. So she waited a long time, until the dark got so thick under the trees she imagined she could taste it. Then, crawling slowly with her belly low to the ground, she approached the camp.

From there, she could smell... something else. Something new. Her ears perked.

It was easy to follow the scent to its source. Easier still to avoid the late-night sentries guarding the periphery of the camp. With the fires burning low, there were many long shadows for her to slip between. The problem came when she got close, and saw the silhouettes of two faunus standing outside the tent. Guards.

She couldn't stand to walk away, not now that she was so close to the alien smell. So she circled around to the back, slithered behind a stack of crates, and eased a claw into the canvas. Moving slowly and smoothly so that there was only a whisper of tearing cloth, she cut a hole large enough to poke her snout inside.

The smell grew stronger. Her nostrils flared as she peered into the tent. There was a chair against the wall right where she had torn the canvas, and her head was hidden under the seat. She inched forward—

And something plopped to the ground in front of the chair. A hatchling with a scrap of shell still stuck behind one of her ears, staring at the intruder with guileless violet eyes. She shook stubby wings and made a twanging sound.

"Shh!" The older dragon's ears perked up in alarm, but apparently the dragonet made this noise often—neither guard reacted.

The square snout butted curiously against her own. Tiny paws pressed down on her nose as the little one raised herself up to eye level, a thick and stubby tail whacking against one leg of the chair as it wagged.

She was at a loss. Still hanging most of the way out of a tent, surrounded by faunus who would hunt her, she just... stared. Acting on instinct, she licked the dragonet's head, cleaning off the piece of shell, and was rewarded with a purr as deep as rumbling thunder. The hatchling returned the greeting, then paced around her head to inspect her from every angle. Another twang.

"Gigas."

In an instant she yanked her head back out of the tent, pressing herself into a shivering ball. The dragonet—_Gigas—_barked a protest. Then a shadow loomed behind canvas walls, and she heard an excited croak.

"There you are," the faceless man rumbled. His shadow bent into a crouch, and for an instant the silhouette of Gigas' head was also visible, poking out from within his arms.

She stayed for too long afterwards, listening to joyful twangs and gentle words of encouragement. Then she remembered that if they found her here, they would kill her. She bolted for the safety of the woods.

It rained that night. As she huddled miserably inside her den, hissing every time a drop of water touched her scales, the ache inside turned into a sharp, stabbing pain. A monster came to her. It was a snake-like creature with two heads, longer than she was but not by much, and about as thick around as her neck. She was glad for the distraction. She pinned it in her claws and watched it wriggle for a long time before she killed it.

* * *

"Hey. Emerald."

She turned to keep her back towards Mercury. Of all the people she wanted to talk to right now, he rated... higher than most, actually, which was depressing. But there were only two people and one dragon she'd prefer to silence.

He sighed. "Look, if it comes down to a fight... I can cover you for little red."

"You mean you'll do the dirty work. Like you always do."

"I prefer the term wetworks," he said, and she could hear the smirk. "But _no,_ I meant I can kick her and her dragon around for a couple of minutes. I doubt they're gonna get in the way so much that we have to kill them."

"It shouldn't be different, having you do it."

"'Course it's different. You're a total amateur—I bet you'd get splatter."

_He's right._

"You're disgusting."

Mercury turned serious. "The hell's with you? I know it's easier when I do it, why are you bringing it up now?"

Emerald fumbled for a lie and came up empty.

"Oh," he said, into her silence. "Fuck."

"Go away, Mercury."

"It wasn't one of the students, was it?"

_"No!"_ she hissed. "Now _go away!"_

He was so startled she thought he was actually going to obey, for once—but before he got the chance, Cinder's voice rose high enough to be heard through the walls of Watts' lab.

"—never even asked me!"

The reply was too quiet to make out. Cinder kept yelling.

"No! You've already as good as confirmed—"

"Yes, I _know!"_

"—can't be serious. They won't take orders from _anyone, _least of all you!"

There was a long silence. Emerald finally looked at Mercury, and found his eyes had gone wide to match her own. She'd _never _heard Cinder sound that angry before. At least, she hadn't until...

_"No! _You work for _me,_ and I _forbid—"_

More silence.

"Do it, then! And when this is over I'm going to_ skin _you for a _saddle!"_

"...Huh," Mercury said, after several long, tense minutes. "I guess that's our cue to avoid her for the next few days."

Behind him, the lab door swung open and slammed into the wall. Cinder strode out. Doctor Watts followed her, smirking despite the livid red mark on his left cheekbone. "Beautiful day, isn't it?" he said cheerfully. "But I haven't been hearing much birdsong lately... perhaps it would be prudent to feed the pit dragons for the next few days, to spare the local wildlife."

Emerald wished she could punch the teeth out of that plastic smile of his. Instead she said, "Fine, we'll help hand meat around."

"Lovely. Cinder and I will fetch it from the stores."

Odd, for more than one reason—that was the kind of grunt work he was usually happy to foist off on other people, and Cinder was giving him the kind of look that suggested she was wondering how long she could make his painful death last. But Emerald was too preoccupied to question his strange whim. Something had spooked the students so badly that they had taken off without another word, without giving either her or Cinder a chance to explain.

What if it was Watts? What if he was up to something beyond what Cinder wanted from him, and the students had found out? They were already suspicious of Cinder, which meant that they might not have checked to make sure it was really _her _doing. He could be doing practically anything in that lab. He could be—

"After we are finished," Cinder said, the words clipped with suppressed rage, "I have a job for you three." Emerald looked around, and jumped—Neo was standing behind them. Probably drawn there by the shouting.

"What?" Mercury drawled. How he still had the nerve to be so impudent after hearing Cinder shout at Watts, Emerald had no idea.

"Schnee isn't going to budge on his son," Cinder said, "and the White Fang can't exactly spur him on with some... proof of life. Not now they've lost him. We're going to have to slow down injections the old-fashioned way."

Emerald's shoulders dropped in relief. This was the kind of thing she could do. She was eager to finally go back to things that made _sense._

* * *

"We need to go."

"What?"

Neo glanced over her shoulder, but she and Roman were alone—except for the pink earth dragon, Granite, who was curled up in a patch of sun and looked about ready to fall asleep. She wasn't about to report them to Cinder.

"Not _out loud," _she signed, irritated.

He grimaced, then switched to signing. "What did you hear?"

"Watts is planning something. And Cinder doesn't like it."

"She doesn't like a lot of things," Roman pointed out, but he looked worried. "Are you sure?"

"Very." Neo didn't know _what _Watts had done, but it hadn't just pissed off Cinder. It had also apparently sent every single one of the students, and their professors, running for the hills.

Roman considered that for a moment. "You're right. If there's some secret she's keeping that can drive that many people away from her that fast, she's going to lose."

Neo started to sign her reply, then froze when she heard a concerned rumble over her shoulder. Granite was watching them intently. Slowy, Neo spelled out, "Can you understand me?"

The pit dragon lit up and let out an excited bark, all drowsiness forgotten. She made a series of complicated motions of her head, paws, and tail. Neo glanced at Roman, who was equally lost. "Sorry," she signed. "I don't know what that means."

Granite slumped.

"Look! If you can, tell the others—"

But she was already curling into a ball, her eyes sliding shut. Her tail twitched, stirring a small pile of bones that were all that was left of her most recent meal. Neo sighed and turned back to Roman. "Maybe we should try to look for the rest of them."

He shook his head. "No. It'd take a hell of a long time to get them to listen to us, if we could do it at all, and something feels wrong here. I don't want to stick around long enough to find out what."

Neo didn't, either.

"Can Whisper carry both of us?" Roman asked.

At that, she managed to smirk. "Please," she signed. "Even your big head isn't _that _heavy."


	50. Grounded

**Happy Friday! This chapter, Whitley and Oscar _definitely _have a plan! They're just... not sure what it is. And the main cast are still working on theirs—with some unexpected help.**

* * *

**50\. Grounded**

* * *

Oscar didn't have a scroll.

Whitley asked him that first morning, after he'd gotten over the nasty shock of the other boy being there when he squirmed out from under Glacier's wing. He'd just grinned sheepishly and said that they were expensive and he hadn't really needed one of his own.

So Whitley went back to Glacier, draped the blanket over his back, and tried not to think too hard about why he felt so relieved. They walked for a long time, their direction chosen by the renegade earth dragon seemingly at random, in total silence.

It turned out Glacier didn't like to sing in front of strangers.

There were good things about this new, larger group. Oscar was nice enough, he supposed, and learned quickly not to touch Glacier. Or Whitley. He could also cook, not as well as Klein but certainly much better than Whitley. Ragnar was old, but when a Grimm showed up on the third day, he caught its throat between his teeth and killed it. Glacier would have had to run away.

Whitley didn't like it. He hadn't liked Glacier's aimless wandering either, but it was somehow worse to know that Ragnar had decided to go _somewhere _and hadn't bothered to tell them where. Oscar chattered incessantly at first, and even when he finally accepted the silence Whitley found that it still grated. The song he'd been on the brink of remembering slipped away again.

And then, on the seventh day, Oscar broke.

"Five lien says we're going to Shade."

Whitley stared at him, baffled. "You want to _gamble."_

Oscar shrugged. "It's better than just sitting here, isn't it?"

"I don't have any money on me."

The other boy grinned. "Good, because I already spent all of mine on meat."

"Why—?"

Ragnar rumbled sheepishly, and Whitley got it. They sat in silence for several long minutes.

"...Haven," he said finally.

"Huh?"

"Maybe we're going to Haven."

"Nno," Ragnar said.

Oscar shrugged, grinning like they weren't stranded in the woods with no idea what the giant reptiles were getting them into. "I guess we'll find out."

"Soon," agreed the dragon.

They really did talk—over the past few days, Ragnar had proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Whitley wondered why Glacier never did.

"So... how long have you been out here?" Oscar asked.

Whitley had lost track of the days. "About a month," he guessed.

"And you're sure we're not going to Atlas?" The question was directed as much at Ragnar and Glacier as Whitley.

"He won't go." Whitley glared at the ice dragon, who had turned his head to look innocently back at him. Ragnar was proof that he _definitely _understood more than he let on.

"Isn't he, um..." Oscar paused, like he was trying to find a delicate way to say it. "...Not your dragon?"

"No. He's my Father's." Glacier's ears twitched.

"It's weird, isn't it? That he doesn't want to go home."

_Yes,_ thought Whitley, _and yet..._

Ragnar tossed his head and gave Oscar a reproachful look. "Rrood."

"Sorry! I didn't mean to pry or anything."

Glacier cheerfully ignored Oscar's question. He paused to sniff a few brightly colored mushrooms that sprouted from a nearby tree stump.

"Don't eat that," Whitley warned. The dragon gave him a side-long glance that was _far _too knowing, then trotted past his find with his tail held high.

"I wonder sometimes," Oscar said, watching Glacier sniff at every passing bush, "what Riders feel like. If it's like this, I mean. You're supposed to raise them from the egg to bond with them, but..."

"I'm not a Rider," Whitley snapped. "He's not my dragon."

He'd get one, he knew. His own perfect pearly egg. The sixth ice dragon in history, and the fourth one alive. For a long time he'd been more or less ambivalent about that. Now... the thought of a baby hatchling clinging to his wrist and demanding to be his, of spending the rest of his life with some _other—_

But it didn't matter. Glacier belonged to Father, and that was that.

Whitley didn't notice the way Glacier's tail hung low in response. After all, he wasn't a Rider—he'd never been taught what it meant.

* * *

Storm woke that morning confused but contented. Ruby was half-draped over her nose, she realized... and so was Yang. It was warm, and nice, even though between the two of them she couldn't open her mouth. She stirred.

Pain shot through her wing. Storm reared in alarm, and felt something constricting her left side. She struggled against it, but the jolt that went through her—like a hot metal spike driven into the joint—made her go still.

Trapped there, not daring to move, she remembered. Ice burning through her wing. The ground. _Pain._

Penny blinked online. "High stress levels detected. Combat mode—"

"No!" Ruby said hurriedly. She was still bleary and only half-awake, but she stroked Storm's nose and spoke gently to Penny. "No. It's okay. It's gonna be okay."

As Storm relaxed, she realized that the bindings around her wing kept it from moving too much. She could sit up, and though it made her wince, it was nothing like the stabbing pain from earlier. Slowly, gingerly, she folded her good wing and wobbled onto all four feet.

"Storm," Ruby said, wrapping an arm around her neck. "Are you sure you're okay to stand up?"

She wasn't, until Penny piped up. "Damage to the left wing joint is severe, but it has been sufficiently immobilized. Further injury caused by sustained movement of the legs and torso should be minimal."

"What's minimal mean, exactly?" Yang asked.

"Minimal damage will not impact future strength and flexibility of the joint." Penny paused, then added, "I will warn Storm if she needs to rest."

Professor Goodwitch, who had been watching the exchange, stepped forward. "Penny. Can Storm travel without aggravating the injury?"

"On foot, yes. It is recommended that she avoid strain on the wings such as flight or the use of wing gusts for—"

"Yes," Goodwitch said quickly. "We'd guessed that much."

Storm lumbered around their crash site while the riders ate. She tried not to look at the wide, welcoming sky above her, and failed miserably. Finally, she gave into temptation and asked, _Penny? How long will it take before I can fly again?_

_Approximately six to eight months, _Penny said, in her usual cheerful tone. Storm's heart sank. As if she'd sensed it, Penny scrambled to reassure her. _I will be able to provide more accurate data as time passes! It could be much—_ an odd noise, almost like a hiccup—_a little less, if we're lucky._

Storm wasn't sure what she was feeling right now—it was like she'd swallowed a glob of something hot and sticky. She definitely didn't feel lucky. That was more than half as long as she'd been _alive._

Penny kept trying to cheer her up. Not being able to lie made her terrible at it—Storm tried not to think about what that said about her wing. When pretending to feel better didn't dissuade her, she had to ask Penny to stop. That left her feeling even worse.

That was how Specter found her, when he approached with his head hanging so low his nose parted the grass. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, and moved to touch his nose against her side. Storm backed up. She could feel her own heartbeat at the tip of her tail and knew Penny was about to engage combat mode, the way she always did when Storm was upset.

"It's okay," she told them both. This time she came to Specter, nuzzling the side of his neck and breathing in his familiar smell. "It wasn't your fault." It had just been so sudden, and when he moved towards her without warning... but she told herself that would be okay, too, now that the metal plate was smashed to bits. She still couldn't get rid of that sick, bubbling feeling in her stomach, and Pit had to force her to eat a few wild carrots he'd found.

Soon enough they were all fed and ready to go... somewhere. The question of where still hung over them. No one had an answer, but a lot of vague half-ideas—Raven? Patch? Some small settlement where they could at least get some food?—were in basically the same direction. To get anywhere, they first had to get out of this wild, Grimm-infested part of the forest.

That wasn't where the argument started. The argument started with Sage, of all people. "We have to tell someone what we know, especially since—" he glanced at Storm, "—I think Cinder wanted us stranded out here. She's trying to buy time."

Scarlet nodded agreement. "If we all walk out of here on foot, she'll have weeks to figure out how to keep us from getting help."

And Yang exploded. "What the fuck is _wrong _with you? We're not leaving anyone behind!"

"That's not what I—"

"Then what _did _you mean, huh? The only reason she isn't trying to _kill _us right now is because there's too many of us! And you want to _split up?!"_

"Yang—" Ruby grabbed her arm.

"We don't need to send everyone," Sage insisted. "Or even most of us. A few Riders could carry a message."

"I can go." Weiss said, before Yang could start on him again. "It's the least I can do."

Blake's ears went back. "That's not fair. This _isn't _your fault."

"We shouldn't be separating in the _first _place," Yang insisted. "Besides, who's gonna believe us anyway? We don't have any proof."

"Dad would," Ruby said. "Or Uncle Qrow."

Jaune nodded. "So would my family. I think."

Weiss hesitated. "I don't know how much Winter could do. We're still rogues, and it's not like the military needs us to tell them to go after Cinder."

"So Jaune and Yang could—" Neptune started to say, before he actually thought about it for half a second and stopped himself. "Or not."

"We have to do _something," _Scarlet insisted. "Wandering around in the middle of nowhere isn't going to help anyone."

Penny's voice broke through the brewing argument. _Storm? There appears to be movement in the sky to your left._

She'd been so focused on their riders that she hadn't noticed, but once she did she twisted her head to look. It turned out to be a lot more than motion—that was a dragon flying towards them. Storm bugled in alarm, and others turned to face the oncoming threat.

Except it didn't look quite as threatening, when it got closer. It was the cream-colored wind dragon they'd met in the valley. Whisper, Storm remembered, though her rider's name escaped her until Sun muttered, "Crap, that's Neo."

"And Torchwick," Yang said, her voice trailing off into disbelief. He was sitting behind Neo, both hands held up in... "Is that a peace sign?"

* * *

Sun was halfway glad for _any _interruption—things had gotten way too heated for his taste. Of course, from his few brief interactions with the guy, he didn't adding Torchwick to a situation had ever made people _stop _yelling at one another.

Whisper landed in front of them, furling her wings and shuffling a little from foot to foot. "Hello!" Torchwick called out, tipping his hat with one hand.

They all looked at each other, a little lost. Goodwitch stepped up to talk to him, her arms folded. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious? We're here to join the party!" He seemed to read the incredulous expressions on their face and turned a little more serious. "There's been trouble in paradise since you left. A _lot _of shouting—and it seems like our doctor friend is cooking something up. So we figured we'd get the hell out of dodge."

Neo frowned and poked him in the shoulder.

Torchwick rolled his eyes. "Well, _she _figures that if Cinder has a secret that scared off all of you at once, we can't work for her in good conscience unless we know what it is." He made a face at the word _conscience._ "I just think she's going to lose."

"So you're... helping us," Sun said slowly. It sounded even stupider when he said it out loud. "Just because?"

"Not just _because._ Keep up, m—ow!" Neo had pinched Torchwick's ear. She made a few quick motions with her hands. "Fine, _fine._ I also asked her to spy on them, and she didn't like what she saw. Neither did I. And if we're going to leave, may as well go with the rest of the pack. Safety in numbers, you know how it is."

"You want to hide behind us and our dragons," Goodwitch said flatly.

Torchwick winked. "That's right. We can pull our weight, though. Neo's been teaching this one how to hunt." Whisper licked his hand as he gestured at her. He made a face and wiped it on his coat. "We figured we could at least fly with you until we're out of Grimm territory."

Then Neo noticed Storm and stiffened. She nudged Torchwick. Pointed.

"Oh," he said, after a long moment. "Well."

"Gonna fly off now that we're not _convenient _for you?" Yang demanded.

He and Neo conferred briefly in sign language. Then Torchwick winced. "Sorry, but... I'm not sticking around long enough to find out what our local mad scientist is planning."

Neo glared at him. He glared right back. She signed something, and he shook his head.

"I'd like to help. I really would—Cinder has it it out for you now, which is enough to make me root for you." A lopsided grin, one that faded quickly. "But I've gotta look out for number one, you know?" His eyes flicked briefly towards Neo.

Gears turned in the back of Sun's head. The heart of the argument, as far as he could tell, was that no one wanted to split up. They'd made it this far by having each other's backs, and no matter what they did, splitting up to spread their warning meant _someone _would be easy prey for Cinder. Especially if Watts was planning something. But... "Can you take a message?"

"What?" Torchwick said.

_"What?!" _Yang burst out, at exactly the same time. "But he—" she stopped, wincing when Ruby squeezed her hand.

"It's really not that big of a deal," she said quietly. "I mean, compared to everything else."

"What message?" Torchwick was starting to look a little nervous, now.

After a brief explanation—Weiss giving him the rundown on the weird chemical she'd found out about in Watts' lab, Goodwitch explained how Cinder must have used it to cause problems in that year's hatchlings, and Ruby and Jaune telling him about their Rider relatives.

By the end of it, his mouth was hanging slightly open. "Well," he said, the cheer in his voice now obviously forced. "That's even worse than I thought."

Neo signed something. Torchwick grabbed her hand and groaned, then signed back just as agitatedly. Finally, she scowled and gave him an emphatic look. He slumped.

"Fine. _Fine._ But if we're going to stick our necks out like that, we're going to need a better guarantee that your friends won't go for the axe."

There was a lot of rapid back-and-forth after that. Goodwitch wanted to go with Neo, to make sure the message was delivered—Neo flatly refused to leave Torchwick with them. Eventually they wrote out a hasty explanation on a scrap of paper, and the two probably-not-so-ex-criminals promised to send it to Ruby and Yang's uncle as soon as they got to civilization.

Yang kept scowling after them long after they'd disappeared from view. "How do we know they'll actually do it?"

"We don't," Goodwitch said flatly. "But if Cinder is planning to attack us, then frankly it's the best we can do for now without putting ourselves at risk."

Sun felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He was glad when they started walking—right then, _any _distance they could put between themselves and that lab sounded like an excellent idea.

* * *

It got dark. They kept walking.

Not a good idea, long-term—this sort of pace wasn't sustainable. But then, they weren't trying to sustain it. They just needed to be far enough away that a dragon couldn't fly from the lab to their location in back and less than a day. Farther away than Watts expected, when he tried... whatever he was plotting. Just the thought of sleeping anywhere near him made Weiss' skin crawl.

_What's left of it, anyway,_ she thought wryly. Her palms throbbed, so she rested them against Specter's shoulder. His cool scales soothed them, and she hoped it helped assure him that it wasn't his fault. She wasn't angry at _him._

The doctor, though... Her left hand curled into a fist, which was a terrible idea. She hissed between her teeth. Fingers shook as the throbbing turned into burning. Funny how _hot _an injury caused by extreme cold felt.

"Let me see."

Blake's voice over her shoulder made her jump. Then she surrendered her hand, wincing slightly as the wrapping pulled away from raw flesh. "Yeah, this needs to be changed."

"You don't have to."

A quiet snort. "Someone does. This... isn't the kind of thing you want getting infected."

Weiss caught Specter looking at them, his ears drooping. "How about we climb on his back for a while?" she suggested. "It'll be easier if we sit."

Blake raised an eyebrow, but she didn't call out the flimsy excuse for what it was. They settled into the saddle. It was cramped—it had only been made for one—but she had to sit close anyway so that Blake could get at her hands.

The tension in Specter's shoulders eased a little. She still wasn't used to the kind of physical reassurance dragons seemed to prefer. Or verbal reassurance, for that matter. Not much practice before Beacon. But she thought he might be worried she wouldn't trust him anymore, and this way she could show him she felt safe sitting on his back. It hadn't been the possibility of him hurting her that had scared her, anyway.

"This is going to sting."

Weiss gave Blake her right hand and rolled her eyes. "I remember from yesterday."

Which, it turned out, she didn't. If it had hurt like this last time, she must have been too out of it to notice. She hissed in pain and tried to close her hand. Blake grabbed it in both of hers.

"Sorry."

"It's fine."

Silence descended as Blake wound a clean bandage around her hand. Weiss spent the time looking around. It was so dark that the exercise was mostly pointless, though there was enough moonlight through the trees for her to make out the dim outlines of the other RWBY dragons, and of Yang and Ruby's silhouettes on either side of Storm. They felt strangely distant despite being less than twenty feet away. Others, who she couldn't make out at all, might as well have been on the moon.

"Done." Weiss looked down, and found that Blake had indeed finished. She offered her left hand, then, and this time she was prepared for the antibiotic sting. Warm, gentle fingers pressed gauze against her palm.

"Thank you."

Blake still didn't pull her hand away. "Do you... want to talk? About..."

It was obvious what she meant, but... well. Weiss didn't want to get into _that _while Specter was listening. So instead she asked the first question that came to mind. "Yesterday. Before Watts came over. You were about to say something."

"Oh." The sound—a little like she just had some of the air crushed out of her—seemed to indicate that Weiss had created a somewhat more effective distraction than she'd meant to. "Right, that. It's..."

"If you don't want to say it, you don't have to."

"No, I do. It's just... now doesn't feel like a great time."

Weiss shrugged, and was suddenly reminded of how their shoulders were pressed together. "I'm not sure how often we'll have the luxury of private conversations, going forward."

She was rewarded with a tiny smile, one she could barely make out in the dim moonlight. "Fair enough."

Some time passed. Blake stayed silent. Weiss was just considering bumping her shoulder to prompt her to speak when she finally said, "It's also a little less... not less _true, _just..." She stopped, let out a breath. "I spent a long time feeling... I don't know. Cursed, maybe. Bad things just _kept happening._ Then we finally got a break, and I wanted to say something, because but you're still here even though you keep getting caught up in the middle of it and I—I don't know."

"Those bad things weren't your fault."

"Not all of them, but..."

"If you're about to try to blame yourself for what _he _did—" Blake winced, and Weiss went quiet. She hadn't meant to be quite that harsh.

Then, softly, "I know I shouldn't. At least, I usually do. Being around you helps."

"Oh." Weiss finally got what Blake had been trying to say all along, and it was... "That's sweet." _Probably undeserved, but sweet._

"It made more sense back when things were actually going well for a change."

Weiss pondered that a moment. Then she squeezed Blake's hand lightly and said, "You'll just have to tell me again, the next good day."

* * *

Goodwitch called them to a halt soon after. They didn't bother pitching tents in the dark—instead they all just curled up with their dragons, wearing their riding clothes. Blake and Weiss slid from the saddle together. She still hadn't taken her hand back, even though it was all bandaged. Didn't, even when they were both standing on the ground and it was time to go their separate ways. Her head tilted down, towards Specter, so that her face was hidden. A single light tug.

Blake glanced at Pit. Then, when he nodded, she slipped under Specter's wing. It was cool and dark. So dark she doubted Weiss could see anything. The dragon tucked his head in with them, pressing his nose into his rider's side. She wrapped an arm as far around his neck as she could reach. Blake sat next to her, not quite sure how close she should be. Weiss still hadn't let go of her hand.

Cool turned cold. Fighting a shiver, Blake moved in a little more. Specter's eyes were open. With so little light for them to reflect, they looked a bit like holes in the pale expanse of his scales. He whined.

"It's alright." Weiss ran a hand along his neck, slow and soothing, and started to hum. Softly, so the sound wouldn't travel any further than the underside of his wing. It was the same liquid cascade of notes that had calmed even Brand.

Blake had felt bad for pushing the dragons as much as they had, but in Specter's case it might have been a mercy. His eyes drooped closed, and within minutes his breathing was slow and even. Weiss let the last notes linger. Then she whispered, "I'm sorry," in his ear.

A deep silence followed. Blake was loathe to break it, but... "You don't need to be," she murmured. It took so long for Weiss to respond that she started to wonder if she'd overestimated human hearing again.

Then, "I know I shouldn't." There was a wry grin on her face that she probably didn't realize Blake could see.

She thought that would be it. But when Blake settled back against Specter's side, wincing a little as she did so—he'd gotten even colder now that he was asleep—Weiss spoke again. "I think I do want to. Talk, that is."

Blake snapped out of the haze of drowsiness. "Okay."

"I... don't really know where to start."

Well. That made two of them. "It must have been scary. I mean... it was scary for me." She swallowed. "When you ran up to him, and I saw the mist."

She knew a thing or two about being hurt by the people you loved. This wasn't the same, it hadn't been Specter's fault, but—but Weiss was shaking her head.

"That isn't what scared me. Or... it did, obviously, but now that I understand what happened it doesn't bother me. I mean, this is a little annoying—" she flexed her injured palms, "—but that's all. I'm not afraid of getting hurt again."

Blake considered asking what _had _scared her... but she thought she could guess. "The device, then."

Weiss went still. "Yes."

"...You're right. That's worse."

"It's so much worse." Weiss shivered, and this time Blake realized it wasn't about the cold. "The council wanted that, remember? Wanted to just—" Her hand tightened. "It's worse than culling."

Blake was thrown. Her voice never rose above a whisper, but there was a weight to it, a ferocity that told her Weiss meant every word. She hesitated. It was monstrous, there was no denying that, but worse than killing Tornado had been?

Weiss was still shaking. Not knowing what else to do, Blake moved closer and put her free arm over her shoulders. "He's alive. It was awful and wrong, but he'll be okay."

"Because we destroyed it. If the council got their hands on something like that..."

In the best case scenario, they'd send mindless drones out to kill Grimm, and let the dragons shiver it out in locked stalls afterward. In the worst... they might never take them off.

"I'm not letting them do that to him. Not _ever. _I'd—" Weiss choked on the venom of her own words, and Blake finally saw what should have been obvious. This had hit on a secret fear.

"We'll keep him safe," she promised, pulling Weiss into her side. "We'll keep all of them safe." Weiss' head came down to rest on her shoulder.

The closeness had happened so gradually, snuck up on her so quietly, that Blake was a little startled to find that Weiss was now burrowed into her side. She put a palm flat on her back, rubbing in slow circles, and wished she had something, _anything _better to offer. Reassurance had never been her strong suit.


	51. Unconditional Love

**Hello again! This chapter, Emerald and Mercury gear up for some sabotage and Justice learns not to discuss philosophy with wild hybrids.**

* * *

**51\. Unconditional Love**

* * *

"—must be something Watts did! They just got here, and he's been _sniffing _around, I don't understand why she trusts him!" Emerald flung out an arm to punctuate the latest point in a _very _long rant. Mercury's patience was dangling by a last frayed thread. Her mouth opened to continue, and he snorted, cutting her off before she could start again.

"She doesn't," he drawled. "You know that. The White Fang screwed the pooch, so we're stuck with him."

"I _know. _But if he scared them off somehow..."

He wouldn't have said it, but he was tired and frustrated and they were about to attack the goddamn SDC. His patience finally snapped. "You're just _desperate _for this to be all his fault, aren't you?"

They'd worked together long enough for him to pick up a whole glossary of death glares and dirty looks from her. This was a new one.

"I guess _you _wouldn't understand. You're only here for the money."

Mercury rolled his eyes. As if _any _of them were only bound to Cinder by money... but he didn't bother to say that. It was obvious that Emerald wasn't in a listening mood. He changed the subject back to what they should've been talking about in the first place—namely, how to break into the SDC's nearest injection facility and destroy every piece of equipment they could find.

'Nearest' still meant several hours away on dragonback. They'd already done that—now it was just a matter of walking the rest of the distance on foot, so that they could keep a relatively low profile sneaking into the outskirts of Vacuo.

Out here, so far from the oasis that was the source of life for the city, there wasn't a single residential building in sight. The injection site stuck out like... well, like an Atlesian skyscraper in the middle of a desert. Sure, there had been _some _nods to practicality here and there—it wasn't made mostly of glass, which probably would've cooked the eggs inside—but there hadn't been much of an attempt to match the local aesthetic.

Which, in this area, was mostly industrial buildings. Factories, foundries, the occasional warehouse. It was pathetically easy to slip in close, even with Jade and Rudder walking with them. Security was tighter than it had been when they attacked Shade. Still far from tight enough.

They approached the rear entrance. There was a massive metal door, the pull-down kind used for loading areas. Big enough for a dragon. "Okay," Mercury said. "You remember where the guards are?"

Emerald gave him a flat look. This one was familiar—_Are you stupid?_

"There might be more of them," she reminded him. "The information we got is a couple months old." Pre-kidnapping, in other words.

Now it was Mercury's turn to be annoyed. "First of all, _this _of all places isn't going to be where he jacks security up to eleven. And second, I always assume there are more guards than I think there are."

"Just checking," she said mildly. "You're so eager to defend your doctor friend, lately. Maybe some of the arrogance rubbed off. Not that you don't have _plenty _of your own."

He scowled at her. She went around him, slamming into his shoulder on her way to the locked door. Seconds later, it wasn't locked anymore. "After you."

Mercury had the last word as he strode past her into the complex. "I don't think anyone wants to defend him. And if _she_ was really your perfect hero, he'd be dead in a ditch right now."

She couldn't fire back, not now that they were inside. But she gave him another look he'd never seen before that promised she was going to bring it up again later. Whatever. He didn't know why he'd bothered—it wasn't like the puppy dog act was new. It said a lot that her fawning over the kid had been more bearable.

Emerald led the way through a deserted service corridor, then up a flight of stairs. The dragons managed it, barely, though at one point Rudder slipped and skidded back down a few of them. Their paws were too big for them to balance comfortably.

It was late enough that there should have been almost no one there. No technicians, only the bare minimum of security. One guard in the hallway, and one inside the actual lab. Too easy to need the dragons... except that they'd make the actual destruction part much easier.

Mercury had been expecting extra guards, but he was disappointed. They saw only one of the guards that were supposed to be there, since Emerald managed to slip them past the one in the hallway while he was checking the stairwell. Jade took care of the one in the lab by knocking him over and gently pressing a paw into his back until he stopped squirming. They tied his hands together with a bit of surgical tape and stuffed him in a supply closet.

It was the smoothest operation he'd ever pulled off, right up until the point where Emerald stuck a lockpick into one of the cabinets holding the injectors and the lights went out. She froze. The darkness lasted only a few heartbeats before red emergency lights came on. Alarms blared.

_"Fuck," _Mercury hissed. Leave it to Atlas to skip the extra guards in favor of sticking burglar alarms in every cabinet.

* * *

The noise was annoying. Rudder folded his ears back, hoping that the alarms would turn off. They didn't. Mercury stood by one of the windows, muttering curses under his breath. "We gotta go."

"But we haven't—" Emerald started to say.

"Do you want to try fighting our way through a bunch of cops? We could do that instead."

"...Shit."

"We'll just break what we can before—fuck. _Fuck."_

"What?" Emerald joined Mercury at the window. "Oh, _come on!"_

Rudder made a confused noise. "Airship," Mercury gritted out.

"Is that the fucking _military?" _Emerald demanded.

"Probably mercenaries. Vacuo doesn't have a big enough standing army to use it on shit like this." Mercury grimaced and backed away from the window. "The old man's pissed and looking to flex."

"We could get out through the roof," Emerald suggested.

"Pretty sure that thing's armed. It wouldn't take that many lucky shots to bring us down."

"Ground level won't be much better."

Mercury swept a hand through his hair, then scowled. "They don't know how many we are."

"...No. Merc, you can't just—"

"This isn't some self-sacrifice bullshit," he said dryly. "I'm not stupid. There's sewer access from the basement, but the dragons won't fit. So I'll distract the big guys outside for a bit while you get the dragons out the back way."

"I could—"

He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. But I figured we should go where our talents are."

Emerald made a face, but she nodded and beckoned to Jade. And, Rudder suddenly realized, to him as well. He balked. "Nno!"

"I'll be right there," Mercury promised. "We'll meet up at the warehouse—Emerald knows which one."

Emerald hesitated. "Merc, maybe you _should _take him. You won't be able to sneak out after the... distraction. If you're fighting anyway, you may as well go ground level."

Mercury stood with his shoulders tense, his face washed in red from the emergency lights. His eyes flicked towards Rudder once. He didn't say anything.

"Oh." Emerald's eyes widened. "Oh my god, you're going _soft—"_

"Shut up and go!" he snapped.

She smirked at him. "Fine, fine. But I'm going to make fun of you for this for the rest of time."

Rudder warbled in frustration. Emerald thought he _should _go with Mercury! But his rider shook his head and gestured for him to follow her, and Mercury had told him that he and Emerald had done things like this many times before, and they might get hurt if Rudder and Jade didn't listen to them. So, reluctantly, he went.

There were distant explosions as they clambered down the stairs—it was harder going down than up, and eventually he gave up and hurled himself over the railing. He landed hard, but better one big impact than dozens of smaller ones. All the guards that should have been inside were gone. Emerald said they were probably pulling out to cover the exits.

Many were focused on the chaos on the upper level. When Jade and Rudder burst out of the back exit, through the door they'd come in, there were only a few mercenaries in dark vests and one woman in the guard's uniform. None of them had the long rifles the council used on dragons, and all of them went down like bowling pins as the dragons barreled through them. Emerald stayed between them, protected from the gunfire.

Then they were in between buildings, winding through an urban maze while Emerald whispered directions. The airship didn't follow—another explosion suggested that it was probably busy with Mercury. Rudder's ears pinned back. He should have _stayed._

A few mercenaries tried to chase them. Jade and Rudder were faster, and soon all sounds of pursuit faded away. He noticed for the first time that a few bullets had stung his shoulders and side. Nothing serious, he soon decided. The smaller guns that humans and faunus used on each other didn't usually hurt very much.

Rudder whined and fretted when they reached the darkened warehouse, refusing to let Emerald try to treat his injuries, until a back door opened and Mercury slipped inside. He bounded over to his rider, moved to lick his face... then thought better of it when the smell reached him. Instead he nuzzled him and winced. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised—his rider had explained what sewer access meant—but it was worse than he'd thought.

So bad that it masked the bitter, coppery scent Rudder might otherwise have recognized.

* * *

"You were caught."

Cinder's voice was as even and calm as it always was. The only warning Jade had that something wasn't right was the way Emerald tensed beside her, and one of Mercury's fists clenching behind his back.

"They had the whole place alarmed to hell and back," Mercury said, lifting his chin. "We're lucky we got out at all."

The outer air of calm burned away in an instant. "You are both _lucky_ I have further need of you, or I'd send you _both _back where I found you!"

Emerald flinched. Jade purred as quietly as she could, hoping the vibration of her chest would soothe her rider. It didn't. She kept her eyes on the ground as she said, "We destroyed some of the equipment while we were getting out."

"Did you." Cinder took a step forward, and Emerald cringed away until her back hit Jade's scales. "Did you _almost _complete your objective? Will you be making the same useless excuses when we _almost _defeat the council and they put a spike through your dragon's head?"

Jade quailed, and Emerald's head snapped up. "I don't—"

"This wasn't our fucking fault!" Mercury shot back. "Our info was _shit._ Old Man Schnee is ready to have a pissing contest the next time the White Fang show up, and we got caught right in the middle of it because your informant didn't think to update after they kidnapped his kid!"

Jade's tail curled around her legs. He'd said exactly what she'd been thinking... and she really wished he hadn't. Rudder warbled nervously and shuffled his paws.

Cinder turned, terribly slowly, to face Mercury. Strike mirrored the motion. "Is that so, Mercury?"

He was silent.

She approached him. Leaned close to his ear. Whispered something that turned his face milk-white.

"Next time you fail me," she said, her voice back to a serene drawl, "I want _no excuses."_

Mercury's eyes flicked towards Rudder, then to the floor. "Yes, ma'am."

Cinder flicked a hand dismissively. "You may go."

Released, all four of them fled the cabin and stumbled into the twilight. They passed Tumbleweed, who lifted his head sluggishly and snorted a sleepy greeting. Mercury put a hand on Rudder's back. He was trembling.

"What did she say?" Emerald demanded, an edge of panic in her voice.

He shook his head.

Emerald slid to a sitting position in the grass, breathing hard. Jade curled around her. Mercury stayed standing, pacing anxiously back and forth. "She's pissed," he said.

"You think?"

"Not at us. At Watts. I'm talking _nuclear _level pissed." Mercury rubbed a hand through his hair. "Fuck, I hope she asks me to kill him."

_"Mercury!" _Emerald hissed, looking around to make sure the doctor wasn't present.

"What? I doubt anyone's spent more than a day around him without wanting to stick a knife in his back." She kept glaring reproachfully at him. Finally he threw his hands up and said, "Alright! Fuck you too! I'm going to feed the pit dragons."

With him gone, Jade wound herself all the way around her rider and purred until she started to relax. It took a very long time. All the while, she kept one eye on the cabin where Cinder was standing. After everything Emerald did, how she spent so much time and energy trying to make Cinder happy... _this _was what she got for it?

Jade didn't growl. She didn't want to scare Emerald. But she did remember Ruby's face as she turned away. She was bitterly disappointed, maybe even betrayed... but never angry.

* * *

On the same day, Justice killed a human.

It was one of the guards for a shipment of lightning Dust. There had been more of them than there ever were before—the Lieutenant said this was because they were stealing from the Council, not the Schnees. Justice wasn't sure what the difference was, but he knew there were too many of them, and too many guns, and some of those had been pointing at Ilia, and he'd stopped caring if the humans were safe.

Now Ilia wouldn't look at him. He tried to ask Brand, but the old dragon was still annoyed with him and wouldn't say anything except that he didn't know. Justice wasn't sure if he was lying or not.

Harbinger tossed his head and said that maybe Ilia was getting soft. Justice snarled and chased him away.

Baby Gigas stared at him with his huge violet eyes. Justice felt a little better, even though neither had said anything.

With no other answers to be found, his footsteps turned towards the woods. The hatchling was there—though she wasn't the hatchling anymore. That was Gigas. Justice decided to call her youngling, which was how Brand often addressed him. It was annoying, just like her habit of scratching him whenever they talked.

"I'm back," he said, sitting on his haunches and curling his tail around his paws.

She watched him warily.

"...I killed a human."

"Bad?"

"No." Justice decided it in that moment, and his growl was laced with smoke. "She was going to hurt Ilia. And now she's angry, or upset, or _something,_ and I don't know why!"

"You were. Why?"

He blinked. "I was... what?"

"Angry. Upset. Something."

Oh. She meant when he'd told her not to hurt the White Fang. "That's different."

The youngling gazed at him steadily, a slightly unnerving glint in her sun-yellow eyes.

"It _is," _he snarled. "I already told you, they would have hurt Ilia!"

"They hurt Ilia. Ilia hurts us. Bad." It was the most words he'd ever heard her speak at once.

"It's—that's—the Fang don't hurt us, they just need our help!"

"Help hurts us."

"But they're only doing it because the humans—"

She hissed, cutting him off. "You asked. I said."

"What kind of answer is that?" he growled.

"Confusing."

Justice wasn't sure why he'd thought she would be less exasperating than Brand or Harbinger. "Whatever. I don't care."

The youngling's amusement evaporated. "Grimm... not confused," she said gravely.

She'd seen the Grimm, too? Of course she had—she lived in the woods around their camp. She probably saw more of them than he did. Not for the first time, Justice fought down the urge to seize her by the scruff and drag her back to Sienna. He didn't feel like getting into another fight.

Justice huffed more smoke and whipped his tail at a fallen log. "This is stupid. I wish—" He stopped himself, but she nodded.

"Rudder."

"Shut up." He hated hearing her say it. Maybe it was too much of a reminder of where he was. That he could talk to this infuriating youngling, but not to his own brother and sisters. He wished he was back at Haven.

Failing that, he wished she would stop reading his mind.

"You wish. Go back. Rudder."

"Fine!" he roared. "I hate it here! Happy?"

"You could go."

That time, he did snap at her. She melted back into the shadows. For a panicked second he thought she'd left him there, but then he saw the two pale pinpricks of her eyes. Justice slumped. "Haven's gone."

"Not Haven. Rudder."

"I don't even know where he is!"

"Find him."

"Just _stop!"_ Justice's tail whipped back and forth in agitation. "I can't go and find him, because the camp is here and Ilia doesn't want to go!"

"Not her. You."

Justice reared up, ears folding flat against the three most terrible words she'd ever said to him. "You don't know anything! You don't even _have _a rider, you could never—!"

He stopped. The pinpricks had vanished.

With nowhere left for his anger to go, he left deep gouges in the trees and scorched leaves on the ground, and slunk back into camp. That night he tossed and turned and whined in his sleep. His paws clamped down over his ears.

Too late. He'd never heard anyone talk about him and Ilia like that before—like they were separate. It was that, not the dead human, that haunted his dreams.


	52. Insubordination

**Happy Friday everyone! This chapter, Ironwood gets a message he _really _wishes was spam or bills or a debilitating computer virus.**

* * *

**52\. Insubordination**

* * *

Four of the new lightning eggs failed—one after another, all in the two days after they'd been injected. Sienna had judged the one that remained to have the worst chances, since it was the most different from the formula that had given them Gigas. She waited for the first two hatchings. Only the first two. Each time had reminded her far too much of the dead dragonet that had preceded her first.

Sienna was convinced that the fifth and final egg would also be a failure, so she opted to ignore it in favor of planning a future raid with the Lieutenant—and also, though she tried to hide it, sneaking glances at the blocky hatchling clinging to his pant leg.

Their meeting place was cramped by necessity. They had cleared out a space near the back of a food storage tent to accommodate and hide Gigas. Since it was still full of canned goods as far as Hazel was concerned, it wouldn't seem suspicious that the place was kept guarded. The human was away from the camp for now... but they had other reasons to make sure the hatchling couldn't roam about without his rider.

The Lieutenant had started to show a marked preference for discussing logistics here. Looking down at the dragonet chewing on his bootlace, Sienna could see why.

"We've managed to hold onto our Dust, for now," she said, "so of course we're running out of eggs."

"Not many brooderies we haven't hit yet," the big man rumbled. As he spoke, he slipped a few dried raisins from his pocket and fed them to Gigas. (They'd learned not to give him _too _much fruit, though—he had a sweet tooth, but if he didn't eat enough meat he got sluggish.)

"But there are _some."_

"Might be better to just move," he pointed out.

"I'd agree, if we didn't have to worry about hiding this one." Sienna nudged Gigas gently with her foot, hiding a smile when he twanged and nosed curiously at her ankle. "See if there are any... smaller..." She trailed off, her ears flicking towards a disturbance outside.

Seconds later, a technician skidded to a stop at the tent's entrance. She was bent almost double to catch her breath. "Sienna—egg—alive—"

Sienna didn't run. She walked briskly, but couldn't find the enthusiasm she needed to sprint. Only a strange sense of dread that she pushed down, scolding herself—if it died, they would inject another egg.

When she reached the lab, the dragonet was perched on another technician's gloved hand. She turned to look at Sienna the moment she stepped inside—the movement of her head was jerky, almost birdlike.

"Here," the man said, holding the hatchling towards her.

Sienna hesitated. She couldn't have said why—it felt wrong, somehow, to touch the creature. She pushed that down, too. Reached out... and jumped. Static popped the instant her skin touched the dragonet's claws.

When she looked up, the Lieutenant was watching her. "I do seem fated to a painful partnership," she said wryly.

Another spark bridged the gap between the hatchling's horns. They were long and slender, standing straight out from her skull. Yellow lines webbed over scales that would otherwise have been a drab grey. Her horns and claws, and the spines that ran down her back and tail, were all bright gold and often sparked. She was slender where Gigas was stocky, but her eyes—a vivid magenta—roved around the lab in just the same way. It reminded Sienna of more than just Gigas.

"She looks..." Sienna swallowed the word she would have used. "Healthy."

The Lieutenant hummed.

An hour later, the dragonet still wasn't dead. She ate a generous helping of whatever food they could spare—mostly pickles, which Sienna was sure her hybrid would have thrown a fit over. Every time she touched something, there would be a little _pop,_ and she'd jump and cheep and look around as if searching for the source of the noise. Thankfully, the constant static didn't seem to hurt her. Sienna envied the technicians their rubber gloves.

When her new hatchling survived her third hour of life, Sienna carried her back to the tent to meet Gigas. The gravity dragon blinked at her. When he touched their noses together, he drew back with an alarmed bark. It still baffled Sienna that such a loud, deep noise could come from such a small creature, and apparently her dragonet agreed. She squeaked and wound herself around Sienna's ankles, making the hair on her legs stand on end.

In time, she overcame her shyness and gave Gigas a cautious sniff. They warmed to one another quickly after that, and were wrestling playfully in the dirt within minutes. By the time Harbinger and Justice arrived, the gravity dragon hardly even reacted when he was shocked. Thick scales, probably.

"What do you think you'll name her?" Ilia asked. They watched as Harbinger introduced himself—much less fearfully this time—and purred when the dragonet climbed over his forepaws. Justice tried to lick her and drew back with a whine. He left his tongue sticking out, his eyes crossing slightly as he tried to see if the electricity had left a mark.

Sienna crouched beside the hatchling. She looked up. Even standing in one spot and staring up at the faunus, she was never entirely still. Her tail twitched, her toes flexed, and electricity danced between her horns and the spines on her back. Always in motion.

"Flux," Sienna decided. She hadn't thought about it beforehand—hadn't expected it to come to her so easily, when she'd spent so long thinking about...

But this time, she wouldn't be taking any chances. Flux would stay with Gigas, locked in a tent until they were old enough to understand commands. With two of them, hopefully they wouldn't get too bored.

Sienna had a call to make.

She didn't bother stepping away—they'd already discussed this beforehand. It would have been better if more than one of the eggs had survived, but they couldn't help that now. She raised her scroll to her ear and called Cinder.

_"What."_

Her eyebrows shot up at the barely contained rage in Cinder's voice. "The lightning dragon hatched."

"And?"

She glanced down at Flux, who was climbing Harbinger's tail. "It was dead right out of the shell. We've adjusted the formula, and we're injecting more eggs now."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"Let me be very clear," Cinder said finally. "Your _incompetence _has forced me to seek additional help. I do not appreciate being forced to deal with this... third party. _Fix your problem, _Sienna, or I will give you a much bigger one." She hung up.

"Ah," Corsac said, into the silence. "That was... unfortunate."

Sienna grimaced. "Bad timing. And now we're working on an even tighter schedule."

The Lieutenant bent down to feed Flux a raisin. "We'll manage. With this one, we've got four dragons."

"Five," Ilia corrected him.

Fennec's ears flicked. "Brand is... _perhaps..."_

"Not going to attack us," Sienna said firmly. He might not _support _them if they needed to deal with Hazel, but so long as they were careful it shouldn't come to that. "You're right—it's not many, in the grand scheme of things... but it's twice as many as we had months ago." She allowed herself a small smirk as Flux pounced on a grasshopper.

_She was worth it._

* * *

Yang had never thought that nothing happening could be so stressful.

After the disaster that came around the last time they got away free and clear, she wasn't the only one who kept shooting suspicious glances at the clear blue sky. This couldn't be it. They knew Cinder was planning something, and that it involved Watts, and based on those first two they could guess that it would be bad.

But Yang had a job to do, so she bottled up all the uncertainty and fear and put on a smile. "Hey," she said, ruffling Ruby's hair. "Did you eat yet?"

"Um..."

That face meant no.

"C'mere." Yang kept her little sister safely stored under one arm—squirming and struggling, as if that would do her any good—while she fetched some granola bars from her pack. Then she let her escape long enough to have... lunch? Dinner? It felt a bit sad to call this an actual _meal, _but making a fire seemed like a bad idea out here.

"Better?"

Ruby hid under her hood and nodded.

The group stopped for a short break, mostly for Storm's sake. Penny hadn't told them to, which supposedly meant her wing still wasn't in any danger of getting worse, but walking all day exhausted everyone and she needed to heal. Ruby wasn't the only one who started fidgeting once they weren't moving—even Professor Goodwitch kept grimacing and glancing up at the sun to judge the time.

Ruby was definitely chafing the most, though. Yang distracted her by telling anyone who would listen embarrassing stories from when they were kids—she fired back, which _really _distracted her. Having their entire group of friends know about the Great Teddy Bear Fire was a small price to pay, if it got Ruby to smile. Which it did. As an added bonus, Blake and Weiss _also _smiled (and laughed), mostly at Yang.

They started moving again, which was better. Jaune sang a campfire song (badly). Nora joined in (cheerfully off-key). Finally Specter whined and put his paws over his ears, and both of them were too busy laughing to belt out the thirty-third verse of One Hundred Beowolves and Ninety-Nine Bullets. Neptune decided Weiss must have spoiled him for everyone else's singing.

Yang relaxed a bit. Ruby still hadn't left Storm's side, but she was watching Jaune and Nora try to get the other half of team JNPR to pick up where they left off, and she was grinning. Everything was okay for the moment, but—

Someone elbowed her in the side and said, "Hey."

She looked up. Sun was walking next to her. "Uh, hi?"

"Just, uh... wondering how you were doing."

"Me? I'm fine, I'm just—"

"Looking after Ruby, I know." He winked. "I figure if you and Blake are making sure Ruby and Weiss are okay, somebody should do the same for you."

"That's... actually pretty cool of you. Thanks." She paused. "Though... maybe hold off on checking up on Blake for a bit."

Sun's tail twitched. "What? Why?"

Yang pointed to where her other two teammates walked under one of Specter's wings. "I think she's busy."

"Oh. Right." He ruffled a hand through his hair. "Is it just me, or have they been kinda..."

"It's not just you. Weiss took the whole thing pretty hard, and Blake doesn't do anything by half-measures. Apparently that includes trying to cheer people up."

"Gotcha."

A minute or two passed in silence. Ahead of them, Ruby hung off one of Ren's arms. If that was still the same conversation, Yang was pretty sure they were about to find out what his singing voice was like.

"So. How's my distraction game?" Sun asked. "I know I'm not gonna top yours, but in my defense I never burned a poor—"

"Ha," Yang said flatly, slapping him hard on the back so that he cut off mid-sentence. "You're funny. And..." She made a show of thinking it over. "I'll give it a six out of ten."

"Only a _six?"_

"I'm being generous. You talked about the _other _teammate I've gotta worry about, you dork."

"Whatever."

Yang gave him a gentle shove. "Shoo! Go talk to Neptune, I want to hear Ren and Pyrrha."

Sun snapped off a two-fingered salute and retreated.

* * *

Justice was gone again. In his absence, there were Grimm.

She was getting better at killing them, and embracing the silence so that she didn't try to talk to them. Maybe it was wrong to blame him for that—but obviously not as wrong as it had been to tell him how easy it would be to find Rudder. _Apparently_ that was as awful a crime as killing one of the Fang.

She hissed and dug her claws into the squirrel she'd just caught. It shriveled up under her paws until she could eat it, savoring every bite. Then, against her better judgment, she wandered closer to the camp. The spaces between tents were dark. She slipped between shadows and wondered if moths felt like this when they circled the lamps and torches that lit the camp—did they _know _it would burn them?

When she reached the tent she wanted, she crouched behind the same stack of crates. Her nose slipped inside. She didn't smell any faunus... but Gigas wasn't alone.

Curious now, she pushed her head in far enough that she could see. Two magenta eyes looked back at her from only inches away. She jerked back, and at the same time the tiny hatchling squeaked and dove for cover behind a small crate that was being used as a table. Gigas twanged at them both.

After a few moments, when she still hadn't pounced at him, the dragonet poked his head out again. He was all gold and grey, and shaking like a leaf in a storm. She greeted him carefully, keeping her head low to the ground so she wouldn't scare him.

Gigas launched herself at him. Sparks jumped. She bowled him over, and the two of them scuffled for a moment before she leaped off him and turned back to the visitor. Once they stilled, she noticed for the first time that there were rope collars tied around each of their necks, fixed to the pole in the center of the tent. The leashes were long enough that they could reach every part of the room... but they wouldn't be able to explore as she had.

Her ears went flat. The younger hatchling let out a shrill shriek and hid behind his sister. Gigas blinked at him.

A noise from outside made her slip her head out of the tent. She hissed a warning to the little ones, telling them to stay away from the opening she'd made, and hoped they were old enough to understand. She thought she might have in their place, but she couldn't really remember being that small.

Footsteps approached. She recognized them instantly—Sienna. A familiar ache started in her chest, which she ignored. She was not on a leash, and never would be. That was more important. Or so she kept telling herself.

"What is it, Flux?" A dark shadow against the tent's canvas wall knelt down. Another shadow stretched out—a hand, coming up to stroke him. Just like the Lieutenant and Gigas, or Ilia and Justice.

It didn't take long for Sienna to soothe Flux. Once the faunus was gone, she poked her head inside again. Flux didn't squeak or duck away this time. He just stood there. Twitching. Electricity arced between his horns as she watched him. Outside the tent, where neither he nor Gigas could see, muscles bunched in her back legs. Her tail flicked back and forth. Preparing to pounce—to attack him or to steal him, she didn't know.

Then she reached out, and licked him once. He had a coppery taste to him, a bit like blood, and her tongue tingled where it touched his scales. Her replacement purred and curled up in a ball. He kept twitching, even in his sleep.

She wasn't surprised when the Grimm found her in the woods, later that night. She talked to them for a long time before she killed them.

* * *

"Sir, you asked to see me?"

Winter had been trying to keep the exhaustion out of her voice for a long time, now—the facade was getting thin. Not that the General was much better, with his hair uncharacteristically rumpled and stubble shadowing his chin.

It had been, to put things insultingly mildly, a shit month.

He looked up and gestured for her to close his office door. "There's been a message from the council."

Nearly a decade of military training just barely kept her from blurting, _Is it Weiss?_ She wasn't sure why she bothered—General Ironwood took one look at her and shook his head. "Nothing to do with the missing students, which means they're probably still in hiding somewhere. I'll let you know if I learn anything."

Relief flooded her. The General winced and said, "It still isn't good news."

She hadn't thought it would be. "Sir?"

"The Council offered us protection. In case the rogues target Atlas next."

Winter narrowed her eyes. "Protection, or inspectors?"

A tired smile. "You're sharp as ever."

"Would that be so bad? This academy doesn't have defective dragons."

He grimaced. "No, and if that were all I wouldn't be worried. They also want to implement certain... measures. Reinforced doors on the stables that lock at night, tracking devices for the dragons, council Riders all over the campus..." His lip curled. "They suggested an in-house expert to perform cullings. I'm not sure how I managed to stay polite telling them where they could shove _that _idea."

"How much of that would be mandatory?"

"Most of it. They let the culling idea slide once I presented it as a waste of resources, since they're so rare up here."

_The ones that happen later in life, anyway._ But she knew better than to say that out loud. Instead she stood at parade rest, her hands clasped in front of her, waiting for him to tell her why he'd called her to his office in the first place.

General Ironwood slumped backwards in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Hypothetically... if the rogues _did _attack the academy, whose side would you be on?"

"Yours, sir," she said instantly.

He nodded, having expected that answer. "And if your sister—"

"I'd abstain. Sir."

"Technically that's insubordination," he pointed out.

Winter nodded. She owed this man a great deal—but she had other, older debts to repay.

Fortunately the General didn't seem surprised by that, either. He stared out one window across the school's grounds. Several students were racing their dragons in circles around the main courtyard, whooping and laughing loudly enough that the sound carried all the way up to the office. Winter frowned—young or not, they _were_ part of the military. A little decorum... but the sight had put a sad smile on General Ironwood's face.

"And what if you were able to choose?" He still wasn't looking at her. "If you could do whatever you thought was right, what would you want?"

"That's a dangerous question, sir."

"You want the council gone, then."

She opened her mouth to protest—then closed it.

"Sorry." General Ironwood ran a hand through his already messy hair. "I shouldn't have asked, but... well, I needed to talk to _someone _before I jumped headfirst into this mess, and I knew you'd give me an honest answer."

"I didn't say anything."

"No, but you didn't deny it when I guessed. You're not a very good liar, Winter."

She didn't deny that, either.

"I think Ozpin would tell me to stay the course," the General mused, turning his gaze back towards the window. "But I can't ask him, and frankly I'm not sure I could do that even if I wanted to. So." He glanced at Winter. "If this all goes to hell, do me a favor, will you?"

"Of course."

"Find Lionheart, and see if you can get him to grow a spine."

"Sir?" Winter blurted, concerned now.

General Ironwood turned to the terminal set into his desk, and typed out a reply. He made no attempt to hide the screen from her. His message was polite and respectful, and demurred on the subject of protection—saying that the school was already well defended by its resident students and faculty.

When he was finished, he leaned back in his chair with a look of deep satisfaction on his face. Winter could _see _the weight that had lifted from him. "Now," he said, cracking the knuckles on his flesh-and-bone hand. "Let's find out how long I can pretend that wasn't a declaration of war."


	53. Justice the Babysitter

**'Lo there! Mmmrgh... why am i awake? *Ahem* Anyway, this chapter we've got a couple of baby dragons and one _really _big one.**

* * *

**53\. Justice the Babysitter**

* * *

Flux crouched low to the ground. Her paws flexed. Her butt wiggled. She pounced, sparks dancing between her claws as she plowed into Gigas and both went rolling over one another. They bounced off one of Justice's front paws as he watched them, amused.

They were so _clumsy._ Flux was all limbs—her tail was almost twice as long as the rest of her, and both her body and her legs were long and thin. She looked like a wind dragon that had been stretched, and it seemed like every time she moved, something got underfoot and she tripped.

Gigas was the opposite. He was shockingly heavy for his size, and waddled everywhere on short stubby legs. When he fell he sprawled like a boulder wherever he landed, and more often than not Flux would immediately trip over him in turn.

Justice wasn't sure what to make of it. He must have been this small at one point, but it was hard to imagine he'd ever been so uncoordinated. _She _hadn't been.

Heaving a sigh, he picked up Gigas by the scruff of his neck and extricated him from the heap. Flux had already proved she could stun small animals when she pounced like that—an unfortunate mouse that wandered into the tent had been her dinner the night before. Her brother was too big for that, but he still had a hard time getting up when they were tangled together and she kept shocking him.

"Stay still for a second," he grumbled. Flux froze immediately—for about half a second, before her tail started to twitch. Her eyes widened. Slowly, as if he wouldn't notice if she was stealthy enough, she reached out with her back leg to hold it down. Her left ear picked up the movement.

"Not that still." Instantly she went back to ruffling her wings and tapping her claws on the ground and winding her tail around her legs. Gigas, who had ignored him in favor of wandering around sniffing absolutely _everything, _looked up sharply and barked. Justice was about to ask him what the problem was when he perked up and bounded to the other side of the tent.

He turned to follow where the hatchling was looking, and tensed. _She _stared back at him from under a chair, her head poking through a hole in the tent floor. Justice hissed at her. A blink, and she was gone.

Gigas made a disappointed warbling sound. Justice nudged him with his tail. "She's a bad influence," he said loftily. Flux whined, her ears drooping.

Justice ignored the pouting, choosing instead to glare at the chair as if it was somehow to blame. He should tell Ilia about her. He should... but if he did, he'd have to explain that she'd been following them and attacking the lab. She'd know he knew, and hadn't done anything before now. He growled. He hated all these stupid secrets, and now he even had one from _Ilia._ Maybe it would be worth Sienna and the Lieutenant and the Albains being angry with him, if he didn't have to—

A little jolt, as Flux tripped over his tail. He twisted to watch as she recovered, balancing precariously between two of his spines. She blinked at him.

_She and Gigas know,_ he realized. About the youngling that visited them, about the White Fang's plans, all of it. Not the lab, not yet, but he was sure Sienna and the Lieutenant would explain things to them soon. When they grew up... no more secrets.

His ears perked up. Now, as Gigas turned his curious stare on Justice's foot, he picked it up and batted playfully at the hatchling. He twanged in delight and rolled onto his back, stubby legs wiggling.

Justice had wanted so badly to see Rudder again, but they'd never been able to talk to each other either. There had always been secrets and schemes and loyalties that didn't line up. But these two could be his real siblings—ones he could talk to about anything. He could try to talk to Harbinger again, too. They'd been distant since the youngling ran away, but that had been because the stubborn hybrid hadn't wanted to seem like he missed her. Now, when the betrayal was less fresh and he had other little ones to bond with...

Yes. Justice nodded once, satisfied. He might find Rudder again one day, or he might not—but he needed to concentrate on the siblings he _did _have, not the ones he almost had a long time ago. As they grew, they would learn about the White Fang and why it was important to fight, and he could help teach them about the lab. He'd make sure the little ones understood. He couldn't let _her _mess things up by putting strange ideas in their heads.

* * *

When Ilia walked into the tent, Gigas was perched on the tip of Justice's nose, ruffling his tiny wings and peering at the world from this exciting new vantage point. Flux clung to his horns, her tail wound choker-tight around his neck. Her ears swiveled frantically back and forth.

Ilia tried not to break down giggling, she really did, but then Flux let out a little squeak and shocked Justice, and his startled snort bounced Gigas into the air. Her dragon shot her a betrayed look as she leaned heavily against the pole in the center of the tent and gasped for breath.

"Sorry," she managed, "but we have work to do."

She was then treated to the sight of Justice lying flat on his stomach with his chin on his paws, so that the two dragonets could clamber off of him. He trotted over to his rider while Flux squeaked and tried to wind around his paws, and almost tripped over the tether she was attached to. He tossed his head as if that would make any of this dignified.

Mouth still twitching with the effort of suppressing a smile, Ilia led him outside. "Okay," she said, patting Justice's neck. "This shouldn't be hard, we're just hitting a small broodery and grabbing as many eggs as we can."

He stood still while she strapped two large, padded sacks to his saddle. The smile that had been threatening to form faded as she stood there, hands flat against the leather, remembering the last time they'd gone out together.

Justice's ear flicked. She shook her head and climbed into the saddle, patting his shoulder once to let him know she was ready.

For once, the raid went off without a hitch. There was no security. The place was an old mom and pop style farm—their income came from chicken eggs as much as dragon eggs. "We're not going to hurt you," Ilia repeated over and over, while Justice growled and the old couple trembled. They filled each of the saddlebags. Both had six individual compartments, which meant they'd gotten away with a clean dozen. Not bad for an afternoon's work. They flew off in the opposite direction from their camp so that the humans wouldn't be able to help the cops find it, then landed to walk back through the woods.

Despite herself, Ilia relaxed. They were free and clear, and it was soothing to be back in the forest again, at just the right time for the sunlight to slant in gold between the leaves.

Somewhere off to their right, a twig snapped.

She froze. At first she wanted to dismiss it as an animal noise—though considering the sound, if it _wasn't _a person it must have been a bear. More followed it. Two person-sized somethings crashed through undergrowth, crunched over leaves, clattered down rocky slopes. Definitely human, to make _that _much noise.

Ilia could blend into the background easily... but there was no hiding Justice in time. She fell into a defensive crouch beside her dragon, and waited for the enemy to approach.

Two figures crested the hill. One man was in his late forties, his dark brown hair lightly salted with grey. The other was younger, probably Ilia's age. Both wore heavy backpacks. The older one had a long wooden walking stick.

When they spotted Justice, both stopped dead. "Uh, hi?" the younger one said, trying for a grin. "There, uh, there isn't a Grimm around here, is there? We hike here all the time, there's never been a—" The older one, probably his father, grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. He went silent.

Justice growled low in his throat, his claws flexing in the dirt. Ilia grabbed a fistful of the reins. "Turn around. Walk away."

"Dad," the son hissed, when his father didn't move.

"What are you doing out here?" the man demanded.

"None of your _fucking _business." Justice was starting to pull on the reins. Now was not the time to be polite. "Take your kid and go home."

The son made a grab for his arm. His father shoved him back, behind him, and tightened his grip on his walking stick. Justice glared at it and hissed. "You trying to get into town?"

"Dad, _stop!"_

Justice took a few steps forward, his tail flicking back and forth with enough violence to uproot a few small saplings. Ilia was dragged behind him by her grip on the reins. "Justice, _don't," _she whispered. "It's okay, he can't—"

"What are you going to do with _him?" _the father demanded. He swept his stick up to point at Justice. The dragon's ears went flat, his eyes narrowing to slits. Ilia's skin turned a vibrant, terrified orange. Heat surged under the scales of his neck.

"No!" she and the son shouted at the same time. Ilia set her shoulder against Justice's neck and shoved, while the boy tackled his father to the ground. A glob of fire hit dried leaves on the ground a few feet away from where the man had been standing. They burst into flame.

_Finally, _the two humans bolted.

Ilia slumped against Justice's neck, panting. "Don't _do _that!" she snapped, when she had enough breath back. "They weren't a threat!"

He growled again.

"They _weren't! _You could have really hurt him just now!"

"Ssscare."

"He would have been scared, and _burned."_

Justice grumbled and flicked an ear.

The rest of the journey back was tense and quiet. Ilia could feel the muscles in his back flexing as he flew, and for the first time felt a little unsettled at his incredible strength. If the man and his son hadn't backed down...

In the camp, Justice went back to being sweet and gentle with the little ones, and the anxious knot in her stomach eased a little. He wasn't a violent dragon, he was just protective. It wouldn't have been a problem if that _idiot _hadn't been so eager to pick a fight with a dragon armed with a walking stick.

* * *

Atlas Academy was deceptively calm. Students milled around in the courtyard, laughing and playing with their dragons. All unaware of the shift that was happening over their heads.

"What do you think?" Winter asked. Steele tilted his head as he considered the question.

It was dangerous. Very dangerous. But... "Rright."

Winter's smile was tight. "At least one of us is sure of that."

He butted his nose against her shoulder. She appreciated the gesture, he knew—though only when they were alone like this. Only where no one else could see. "Risssk," he agreed.

She sighed and lowered herself down, sitting cross-legged on the roof of the Academy's cafeteria. Steele curled up behind her so that she could lean against his side. Her eyes stayed locked on something far in the distance as she said, "This is going to escalate. We're talking about a _war, _and I don't—" She cut off. Grimaced. "I don't know where she is."

"Ffind," Steele promised.

Winter pressed her fingers against her temples. "That's not it. It's just—it would be different, if it was just us. The General, the professors, the Flight Squads. Not..."

"Sssmall."

"...Yes."

Steele shook his head. "Nno. Ice sssmart. Strrr..." He gave up on the second syllable. "Gud."

"I know that." She caught the look he was giving her and huffed. "I _know."_

"Ssscared."

Winter flinched. "If I just knew where they were," she muttered. "Or what they were doing, or who else was involved in all this—there are a _lot _of people who don't like the council, that's hardly a decent criteria for choosing an ally. And what if—"

Steele nudged her. "Nno."

"Independence is one thing, this is—it's _insane, _it's far more dangerous than anything she'd be doing as part of a Flight Squad and she hasn't even finished _training _yet!"

"Scared... 'kay."

Winter slumped. "It's not. I should trust her to look out for herself."

"Winn..."

She stood up abruptly, her lips pressing together in a thin line as she crammed everything she was feeling back down. Steele had no choice but to follow when she beckoned him. "She'll be fine," Winter said, and vaulted into the saddle.

He whistled agreement, hoping he could convince his rider that it was true.

* * *

Watts watched Cinder pace back and forth in his lab—something she'd been doing quite a lot of, recently.

"You've cost me twelve dragons already. _Twelve. _Do you have any _idea _of the difference that will make in the coming fight?"

"I've given you several hybrids," he pointed out. "So I believe my balance is actually at around nine dragons. I'm confident I'll bring the numbers back into my favor soon enough."

"Twelve _so far._ They're _gone, _Watts, and they're not going to stay quiet!"

"Oh, that." He smirked. "I believe I have the solution to that particular problem."

Cinder glowered at him. He waited patiently while her expression cycled through murderous fury, frustration, and cold calculation, and finally settled on a grimace. _"What."_

This was _fun. _He wasn't normally in such a strong bargaining position... but there were quite a few players on the board, now, and all of them so eager to tear out each other's throats. Even a small advantage was invaluable, and he could give Cinder quite a bit more than that. So he beckoned with one finger, watching with amusement as her fists clenched.

Too bad for her, really, that Cinder was too smart to kill him outright when the White Fang had proved so useless. Still... he'd pushed enough for today.

Watts led the way outside without any more smug remarks. Cinder was just about to snap at him again when they passed the first pit dragon. It was the big three-legged earth dragon, curled in a ball, fast asleep. Further along, the dark blue water dragon lay draped over the smaller Glory. Four of them were in a little heap—Watts recognized Tallow and Riptide, and assumed the others were probably their siblings.

"The meat," Cinder said, her voice flat. Nothing she hadn't already guessed.

"I had to use several small doses—can't risk one of them recognizing the smell."

Her lip curled. "I fail to see how this is supposed to help."

Watts doubted that. There was a tension in her shoulders that made him think she knew very well what he was about to say. She didn't _like _it, but she didn't have to. It was her best and only option, and she would take it. An unfortunate position to be in—he certainly didn't miss those days.

"Well, now that they're asleep..."

He turned a corner and stopped in his tracks. There before them was a slumbering colossus. Or it _should _have been. One of the monster's eyes was open. Not wide—just a glowing crimson slit. It twitched and growled, its tail lashing behind it.

_Ah. It knows what's happening. Lovely._

"I _did _adjust the dose," Watts said, irritated. Even a dragon of this size should have been more than merely inconvenienced by enough sedatives to kill several elephants.

Alas. "Relax," he said, his voice low and soothing, as his hand dipped into his waistcoat pocket.

Smoke billowed between the creature's jaws. Its eyes opened wider. They rolled back and forth as it struggled to stay awake, its claws flexing. No fire, fortunately. Watts stepped closer. Even as the monster tried to flinch away, he slipped a small syringe from his pocket and delivered a final dose of sedative.

It went limp.

"There, now." Watts stroked its broad forehead. "That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

When Watts pulled a silver plate from his other pocket, the creature didn't even stir. He fixed it in the same place he had just petted, right above its eyes. A green light flickered on.


	54. Hunted

**Happy Friday folks! Has anyone seen my shoe? I seem to have dropped it.**

* * *

**54\. Hunted**

* * *

Pit tried to be subtle about it. At first.

He and Fang fell back a bit, slowly, letting Storm and Specter pass them until they were _almost _walking side-by-side. Then Specter panicked and tripped over a root.

Pit met Fang's eyes, and together they just sort of... walked around the other two until they were bracketing them. Storm and Specter, suddenly squished between them, had no choice except to finally start _talking to each other._

Specter gave Pit a dirty look. He ignored it—he was pretty sure that would be a thank-you in a few minutes.

Storm was the first to make a move. She bumped Specter's shoulder with her own while they walked and said, "Hi."

He ducked his head and mumbled, "Hello."

She glanced around nervously. Fang gave her an encouraging nudge. "I know you feel bad," she told Specter. "I kind of do too, even though it doesn't make any sense."

"...You do?" Specter's ears went back. "But—"

"I mean, it's as much my fault as yours," she pointed out. "Since it isn't."

He let out a high pitched, confused whine.

"How about... I forgive you, even though you didn't do anything wrong. And neither did I, but I think it might feel nice if you forgave me anyway."

Specter stared at her. "I, um... I forgive you? But you really _didn't—"_

"I know." Storm butted her head playfully against his, and that was that. Pit could finally relax. At least for now—he was getting the feeling Specter would need reminding every now and then for a while.

He stayed on Specter's other side, walking close to him so that their riders could talk. They'd been doing that a lot lately, most of it under the ice dragon's wings. Pit tried not to mind, since he knew his brother needed the reassurance.

A flash of orange.

Pit squinted at the horizon, but there was nothing there. Only the tops of trees.

"Pit?" Blake put a hand on his back. He'd stopped dead, and was craning his neck to try to catch another glimpse of—_there!_

He couldn't see more than an outline and a flash of color before it disappeared into the leaves again, but this time he knew that it was a dragon. One he recognized. "Guh-lorry." He pointed with his tail.

"What?" Blake blurted, craning her neck to see—but she was out of sight again.

Ahead of them, Professor Goodwitch turned back towards them. "Is something wrong?"

The orange silhouette returned. She'd been flying in a straight line, but as she passed overhead she dipped one wing and made a wide circle.

Yang spotted her too. "She sees us."

"Hey! Glory!" Ruby waved a hand over her head. "Come down!"

She kept circling, dipping briefly in front of the afternoon sun. Pit squinted up at her. He let out a long, trumpeting bellow. "Glory!"

There was no answer. Maybe she hadn't heard him, but...

"Should we fly up to where she is?" Jaune wondered. "Maybe we could tell her about Watts, and she could spread the message to the others?"

"Um..." Ruby hesitated. "Maybe? It might be kind of hard to explain about the chemistry stuff."

"If we—" Blake started to say, then cut herself off mid-sentence. "There's more of them."

She was right—two more specks swept towards them, each coming from a different direction. Pit couldn't tell who they were at this distance, though he did have a guess about the dusty brown one.

"Ruby?" Penny's light went yellow. "Are these pit dragons trained in aerial maneuvers?"

"Um, no? Why?"

"Glory appears to be flying in a perfect lemniscate."

"A lemon-what-now?"

"Figure eight," Weiss said absently, her eyes still on the dragons overhead.

Pit cocked his head to one side. Now that he was looking closely, Glory _was_ flying in an oddly symmetrical shape.

"Okay...?" Yang made a face. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Blake's hands tightened on Pit's reins. He rumbled in concern and craned his neck to look at her. "It's too neat to be natural."

Ruby stiffened in her saddle. "You mean—"

Above them, the other two dragons reached Glory. Pit had been right about the tan-colored one being Tumbleweed, and he could guess that the other, much smaller grey one was Riptide. All three of them flew overhead in similar patterns. Too neat, too organized—nothing like the pit dragons ought to be.

_"Shit," _Yang hissed.

"Go!" snapped Goodwitch.

"We can help!" Fang insisted.

At almost the same time, his rider shouted, "Wait! We're gonna need to distract them if everyone's gonna get away!"

Pepper was already running, her wings fully extended, charging up a small incline that ended in a steep drop. Goodwitch slid out of the saddle as she ran, then hopped on behind Ren on Ao Guang. "Two more dragons," Nymph decided.

Huo perked up. "I'll do it!"

Fang was already following Pepper.

"Um..." Zircon's ears went back. "Guys?"

There was a fourth shadow against the clouds. Pit couldn't even tell the color at this distance, but it could easily get close enough to spot their group if no one intercepted it. "I'll go too," he decided.

No time for arguments. Pit jerked his head towards the hovering dragons, hoping Blake would understand the question he was trying to ask. "Go," she urged, reaching down to tighten the straps around her legs. He followed after Fang and Huo, all three of them using the same slope Pepper had to get into the air. It wasn't very steep, and there was an instant where he wasn't sure he could get off the ground—but the moment he used his powers, he soared easily over the treeline.

All three pit dragons dropped out of formation. Pit roared a challenge and flew to meet them.

* * *

Huo _burned._

Not literally, he tried to tamp that down as much as he could—Sun was on his back, and he wasn't angry at the _dragons._ But he'd been sick of the council treating them like tools for a long time, and now here Cinder was doing exactly the same thing.

"Try and get close!" Sun shouted over the wind. "They won't be able to follow if we grapple them!"

Huo went for Glory. He was still steaming, and knew she wouldn't mind the heat so much. Pepper crashed shoulder-first into Tumbleweed and sent the pair of them into a spiral. That left Pit and Riptide. Fang chose to gang up on Glory instead of poor Riptide.

It was easy to get close. Harder to get so close that their wings were overlapping, but he managed—and as soon as he did, he latched onto her with his forepaws. They fell from the sky together. Glory's tail thrashed, coming dangerously close to hitting Sun. Huo tried to warn her off by digging his claws in a little. She ignored it.

Right. Not Glory—a machine _wearing _Glory.

Yelping and swearing at the top of his lungs, Sun pressed himself tight against the saddle. Huo had to let go of her to block her next swipe, and she took the opportunity to slash at his wings. Fang intercepted the attack by dropping down on her from above. While she flailed at the air to stabilize herself, Huo had a chance to spiral higher. They'd gotten dangerously close to the treetops.

"Hey!" he called out. "You still in there?" He wasn't expecting a response, which was good—she didn't give him one.

"Uh, Huo?" Fang's voice. Huo risked a peek in his direction and saw that the fourth dot was smuch closer—and, at the same time, he realized it had been _much _farther away than he'd first assumed.

He didn't need to see that it was blood read to know which dragon was coming. Because of _course _it was Crucible.

Huo guessed by the steady stream of swearing that Sun had noticed the same thing he had. Not much they could _do _about it, though, and Glory wasn't keen on letting him ignore her—no. The _machine _wasn't keen on letting him ignore Glory. Glory probably wanted to go back to playing fetch and sleeping under Inkwell's wings.

Frustrated, he lunged at her while Fang clung to her back, ripping at the plate with his claws. It was fixed on, not growing armor the same way that Penny did—probably a bit of a rush job, considering it had only been a few days since they ran away from Cinder—but still impossible to remove without the right command.

"Um... detach?" he tried. Nothing happened. He stopped trying to tear it off when he accidentally scratched Glory's forehead instead. She didn't even wince.

"This isn't working!" Pit roared. He flew circles around Riptide as she took vicious swipes at him.

Pepper dove out of the way of Tumbleweed's tail in time to shout, "Agreed! Keep them occupied as long as you can. When Crucible gets close, _fly!"_

"But—"

"We'll _all _fly," Pepper said, exasperated. "See if we can't lead them off."

Huo risked a glance back at the ground, and found that the others were at least out of sight. For now. It wouldn't be hard to find them by following the path they'd taken, since they couldn't be moving very fast.

Glory tried to take a bite out of him again, so he darted out of the way. He wasn't prepared for her to lash out with one of her hind legs—which were usually tucked under their bodies during flight—and winced when she scored a long, shallow scratch across his shoulder. As he rolled in the air to dodge her follow up, he glimpsed a _fifth _dot heading towards them.

"Oh, come on!" he snarled. He was starting to suspect that _all _the pit dragons might be on the way. Huo really didn't like their odds if that happened.

Fang squawked in alarm and dropped almost twenty feet before flaring his wings to steady himself. Huo soon saw _why—_Crucible had dropped out of a cloud only a few hundred feet away.

"Go!" Pepper took the lead. Her parting swipe across Tumbleweed's nose left him squinting and flailing in the air. They followed her, though Huo had no idea how to pull off the same trick. Glory and Riptide kept pace with them, Tumbleweed was only a few dragonlengths behind, and Crucible bore down on them like a storm cloud.

At first, Huo was terrified that Pepper was moving in the _same direction _the others had run—but she wasn't. Not quite. She kept close enough to their route that the pit dragons would be tricked into following, thinking they were trying to return to the safety of the pack, but instead she took them on an angle. He thought he caught a glimpse, just once, of someone's tail poking out from under a fern—though that might have been a snake.

Riptide dropped away from them and started to fly in a wide spiral, scanning the ground below in search of their friends. Not much they could do about that—not without getting within grabbing range of Crucible. Instead, Huo lowered his head into the wind and focused all his attention on _speed._ And then, belatedly, he remembered Pit. Right now he was almost neck-and-neck with Pepper, flying easily with the aid of his powers. When they ran _out..._

Right. Now would be a _great _time for someone to come up with a plan.

* * *

_So. Much. Fire._

Crucible was still almost a hundred feet behind them... but apparently he _could,_ if sufficiently motivated, spit a fireball further than that. Pit dropped like a stone to avoid yet another attack. To Blake, the air smelled of regret—and singed hair.

"Faster!" Sun shouted over the wind.

"We're _trying," _Yang snapped. Pit groaned. His powers were starting to tire out, which meant he was slowing down.

Blake twisted to look over her shoulder. Tumbleweed had started to fall behind, but the gigantic fire dragon had not. Fire glowed between his teeth, his snout contorted into a vicious snarl. He was close enough now for her to make out the scars that criss-crossed his muzzle. If he caught up to them...

"Left!" Sun screamed.

Pit dipped one wing and spun in the air. Another jet of fire missed him by mere feet, coming so close Blake could feel the wash of heat across her face. She wasn't sure if she was imagining it or not... but when she glanced back, she swore he'd closed the distance between them even further.

Port twisted in the saddle. "Ho!" he bellowed. "Pepper and I shall engage—"

The next fireball clipped Pit's tail. He roared, clawing at the air with his wings, desperate to get just a _little _farther away. Blake scanned the ground for anything that could buy them more time. She saw... trees. A lot of trees.

Actually... "Pit? Do you think you could fly between the trees?"

His head twitched, as if he wanted to stare at her but couldn't because he was busy flying. His ears went flat.

"Not for long!" she promised. "Crucible won't be able to follow, he's too big."

At that, Pit's ears stood up in reluctant interest. Apparently smashing nose-first into a tree was still more appealing than Crucible catching up with them. Blake briefly weighed her chances of conveying the idea to the other riders, then asked her dragon to relay the message. She wasn't sure how well Pepper could fly between the trees, either, but seconds later she dove headfirst into the canopy.

The next several seconds were spent frantically shielding her face with her hands as twigs whipped against her face. Then they dodged and weaved between sturdy trunks as the sounds of cracking branches surrounded them. Crucible tried to follow and plowed through three sturdy oaks in quick succession—toppling _all _of them. He rose back above the treeline, and did not spit fire.

Blake sighed in relief. She'd been banking on whoever was controlling them not wanting to start a forest fire, since they were still fairly close to the valley. The council might investigate the smoke—and even if they didn't, most of the buildings there were made of wood.

Riptide and Glory both tried to follow. Within seconds Riptide clipped a tree and went pinwheeling to the ground. Blake's heart lurched—but she was already getting up. Glory kept after them doggedly. Huo had his own incident with a maple and dropped fifteen feet before he could catch himself. When he finally did, he was behind Pit, almost within Glory's reach.

A shadow passed over them. Blake craned her neck upward and felt her heart leap into her throat at the sight of Crucible's silhouette, his red scales almost black against the bright blue sky. He was flying much faster than them now, and she doubted the protection of the trees would last much longer. Pit was straining his powers even more to be able to duck and weave like this.

Pepper barked a command. She veered sharply to the left, while the three younger dragons struggled to follow. Despite being bigger than them, she dodged between tree-trunks with grace, heading towards the side of a steep hill. Glory, who hadn't been warned ahead of time of the sharp turn—_how? didn't she hear Pepper?_—had to make a much wider turn and try to catch up with them again. She passed behind a tumble of rocks...

And Pepper vanished. Blake had less than a second to panic before Fang, too, dropped headfirst into an opening in the hillside. Pit and Huo followed, and Blake found herself in a mid-sized cave—a little bigger than the one Brand had lived in.

Outside was the leathery flapping of dragon wings. Blake scanned the cave desperately, but there were no other openings—only the one they'd just come through. They had seconds, minutes if they were lucky, before one of the roving dragons found it. She tensed. Maybe they could force their way past whichever dragon spotted it... but what if that was Crucible?

Pit approached the opening.

"Don't!" Blake hissed, giving the reins a little tug. "They'll see—"

His paw slammed into the cave wall. Dirt tumbled into the opening—_much _more than he should have disturbed. So much that the light was blotted out entirely.

Outside, she heard snuffling. Branches popped and snapped, as if under an enormous weight. Silence. Then more footsteps, this time moving away. Blake sagged against Pit's neck. She'd almost forgotten he had earth in him, too.

After it had been quiet for a very long time, Sun risked a whisper. "Holy shit. _Holy shit."_

"Sun!" Yang's voice. "They might not be gone yet."

More snapping twigs. Except... these weren't footsteps. The sounds were almost random, a constant snapping and popping and _oh,_ that was why it sounded familiar. It was the same sound a campfire made. Apparently Watts was willing to risk his lab in order to kill them. _Great._

Port cleared his throat. "Well. It looks as though we'll have to wait out a forest fire."

There was a quiet thump, like something hitting the stone at the back of the cave. "Damn it," Yang muttered. "Ruby's gonna freak."


	55. Smoke Signals

**Happy Tuesday, folks! Here's another chapter, starring the Stark Dragonry, Winter Schnee, and James Ironwood's hatred of politics.**

* * *

**55\. Smoke Signals**

* * *

"Where even _are _we?!"

Neptune threw his hands into the air in disgust. He was sick of keeping his voice down, sick of wandering around in the middle of nowhere waiting for the next catastrophe, and _really _sick of Sun and Huo jumping headfirst into danger like this.

"Does it _matter?" _Weiss shot back. "It's not as if we know where we're going."

"Enough," snapped Goodwitch.

"Do the others know where we are?" Neptune demanded. "Because if _I _don't, it kinda feels like they won't either."

"They'll find us," Sage said, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"But... shouldn't we stop and wait?" Ruby asked. "We can't just leave without them!"

"I said, _enough."_

Everyone shut up.

"I can assure you, at the pace we're going they will have _no _difficulty catching up. We'll see them when they get close."

"It's been almost an _hour," _Neptune insisted. "Can't we just go back and—"

"Yes. Almost an hour." Goodwitch's voice was dry. "It has been known to take longer than that to lose pursuit, Mister Vasilias. Peter is an experienced Rider—I will ask that you trust him, and your classmates. If they still haven't returned by late afternoon, we will send someone to find them. Until then, I'd prefer to avoid splitting our group even further when we have no means of communicating with one another at a distance."

"But—"

Scarlet elbowed him. "Nep, come on. We're not going to get out of here on foot if we don't keep moving."

He was about to argue, more out of frustration than actual disagreement, but a sound stopped him. It was faint—something very loud, coming from somewhere very far away. A roar.

A few panicked glances later, and several students launched themselves at nearby trees, climbing up to try and see what was going on. Neptune was one of them. The instant he saw the sky, he almost slipped off his branch.

Part of it was blotted out completely by a pillar of smoke. Far in the distance, the outline of a dragon appeared out of the blurry haze. Neptune spent about half a second wondering if it was one of theirs or a pit dragon. Then it shrieked again and a jet of flame flew from its mouth. The line of fire spread into the distance, until the whole horizon was blotted out on that side.

Neptune scrambled back down the tree, swearing and stumbling as he hit the ground. People were already talking over one another in a panic. Finally Goodwitch clapped her hands together. They quieted. "We need to move. Now. They're trying to box us in."

"But the others—"

"They must have lost them, right?" Jaune said, hesitantly. "I mean, why else would they risk setting the forest on fire?"

"Yes," Goodwitch said impatiently. "Now, if we could _move, _before that dragon finishes surrounding us with raging forest fires?"

* * *

Qrow had figured he and Tai could manage four hatchings, easy. They had dragons to help, and the kids weren't idiots either—their parents were Riders Tai knew, and they'd all handled eggs before.

Of course, that had been his plan for all four happening at once. Which the _official _Dragonries made happen by injecting the eggs at precise times and controlling their temperature down to a hundredth of a degree. They had a lot of frantic library raids, not a single trained technician to speak of, and the most expensive incubators Tai could afford. Which were, it turned out, dirt cheap.

So they stayed up in shifts. For _six days._ With their sleep further interrupted every time one of the dragonets decided that the dead of night was a much more dramatic time to emerge. And three of the four students tried to stay up _until one of the dragonets picked them, _which meant that by the time the fourth and final egg hatched, the house was full of sleep-deprived teenagers, a near-homicidal Qrow who'd been going to sleep at six in the morning for almost a week, and Tai. Insufferable morning-person Tai who was _still cheerful._

Qrow was tempted to push him into a pile of dragon dung. But, instead, he decided to be the bigger man and hang out on the roof with Salty for a while, trying to rub away a headache while the excited shrieks of kids and dragonets drifted up from below. A few minutes later, Tempest joined them.

"Llloud," she said.

He burst out laughing. "Yeah, no kidding." In the kid's defense, hers was the fire dragon—and almost as vicious as Phoenix had been when she first hatched.

Slowly, reverently, he pulled out his flask and tipped his head back. Tai hadn't wanted him drunk when the eggs hatched. Qrow... reluctantly agreed that he had a point. Salty's tail drooped, and Qrow mustered a grin for him.

"Not going to go overboard," he promised. "I'm still waiting for that little hell-beast to set the barn on fire."

Somewhere below him, the newest rider shouted, "Not my ear!" Qrow groaned. He should probably get down there soon—he definitely should have protested more when Tai told him he could be the fire instructor.

Before he could move from where he sat, he felt his scroll vibrate. His brow furrowed. He hadn't gotten a message from _anyone _in a while. No more stupid jokes from Yang and Ruby, no more invitations to go bar-crawling with Peter and Barty... no more missions from Ozpin. Just silence.

Shaking his head, he squinted at the screen. Unknown number. He scanned the message.

"Ah, _fuck," _he blurted. "Tai! Tai, get up here!"

"Where the hell—are you on the _roof? _Thanks for _helping, _Qrow!"

Salty and Tempest nudged him with their noses, making inquisitive sounds as they stared at the message. "It's the girls!" Qrow told them, and Tai. He didn't wait for his old friend to climb up. Instead he pushed himself off the roof and landed much more painfully than he would have as a teenager.

"What?!" Tai was at his shoulder in an instant, snatching the scroll right out of his hands. His lips moved soundlessly as his eyes roved over the message, widening with every word. "Who is this from?"

"I told you, the girls." Qrow pointed to the end of the message.

— We're kinda out of range right now, so a friend is taking the message ahead for us.

— P.S., Tell York to stop fussing so much over the ointment, even if it smells bad.

Only someone who'd taken care of him would know about York's hatred of the ointment they gave him for his missing eye, and Ruby had been persuading him to stay still for it for years. It was them.

Everything the two of them had been asking themselves, increasingly desperately and fruitlessly, since the invasion of Beacon—all of it was suddenly right there. The girls had gone with Cinder, the up-and-coming rebel leader. They were in the woods north of Vacuo. They were safe, for now, but that was about to change. And, of course, the icing on the cake—Cinder engineered the mass increase in hatching defects, had access to some kind of dragon mind control device, and was gunning for both his nieces.

Qrow stared at his scroll for a moment, paralyzed with indecision. James would want to know. Winter would _definitely _want to know. But if this got into the wrong hands...

He forwarded the message. James could be rash, and the way Atlas handled its hatchings was repugnant, but he wouldn't betray them like that. And they'd probably need all the help they could get.

That finished, Qrow glanced up. Their four new students were milling around, trying to act like they weren't listening intently as Tai summarized the message for the dragons. "Shit," he mumbled. "Uh, okay, look—"

"It's summer break," Tai said, lunging for Quake's tack.

"Yeah. Uh... be good, take care of the broodies and your hatchlings, and if anybody you don't know comes knocking, lock the door and hide upstairs."

All four teenagers stared at him in bafflement and alarm. "But, sir?" The girl Tempest seemed to like—who had, in fact, gotten the wind egg—raised her hand. "What about lessons?"

"Sorry kids." Tai's words were muffled, because he was holding the reins in his mouth while he tightened straps on Quake's saddle. "Just got word on my daughters. They need backup."

The girl with the fire dragonet squinted at them. "You're just... leaving us alone in your house?"

Qrow slung Salty's saddle over his back. "Yep."

"You aren't afraid we'll steal stuff?"

"Nope. Dragons are great judges of character."

"Or accidentally set the barn on fire?" She cast a slightly nervous glance towards her dragonet. Her left ear was still bleeding.

"Uh..." _Shit, _they probably shouldn't leave them completely unsupervised. They were rider's kids, maybe, but they still needed _some _guidance. Qrow glanced at Tai. His mouth was set in a grim line as he checked Quake's saddlebags, but there was a hint of panic in his eyes. Probably remembering Summer.

_Yeah, no._ He couldn't even _ask_ that. Qrow could stay behind, but if he found out something had happened while he sat on his ass babysitting, he'd have to... well. He wasn't going to risk _that _either. He'd rather the whole damn house burned to the ground.

Hang on. They were all Riders' kids. "Call your parents," he said, nodding to himself in satisfaction.

All four teenagers glanced at one another. "They're on missions," the water rider said sheepishly. "There's been Grimm everywhere since Beacon, and we weren't going to be home, so..."

Fuck it. Slowly, Qrow turned to look at Tempest. She drew herself up indignantly and said, "Nno!"

Tai dropped the saddlebags and approached her. Gently, he drew her head down close to his and stroked her forehead. "I know," he murmured. "I know... but we're gonna get them back, okay? I know I can trust you to make sure they have a home to come back to. And somebody's gotta protect those hatchlings."

Her ears drooped. Reluctantly, she nodded.

Qrow fumbled for his wallet, gestured at the nearest teenager—the earth rider, this time—and dumped about half its contents into his hands. His eyes went huge. "Use that for groceries and shit. Should last you until your parents get back. Until then, listen to York and Tempest."

"You're putting the dragons in charge?" the water rider blurted.

"Yup." Qrow grinned and vaulted onto Salty's back. "That's lesson one, kids—your partner's just as smart as you are. A hell of a lot smarter, if you're anything like me."

"Try not to be," added Tai.

"We will," the fire rider said solemnly.

* * *

Winter rapped on the door three times. When the General's voice called, "Enter," she strode in with her posture military perfect, her hands clenched in tight fists where they clasped behind her.

"Sir?"

"I told you I'd notify you as soon as I got word—"

Her jaw jumped. No news was good news. They'd been caught. Her mind raced through possibility after possibility, each worse than the other. Would they cull a healthy dragon like Specter? Would the riders themselves be arrested? Would that even _matter, _if they killed her partner?

"Winter, the council still haven't found them. This information came from Qrow Branwen."

_"Qrow?"_

General Ironwood raised an eyebrow. Winter subsided, embarrassed. "Yes. Qrow. Apparently his nieces got him a message."

She let her shoulder's relax, briefly, as relief washed over her. Then she straightened. "Is this message classified, sir?"

"Not unless I report it to the council," he said dryly, "which seems like a bad idea." He explained the gist of it to her—and finally, after _weeks,_ she knew where Weiss was.

"If they're out of range of the CCT..."

"We can't contact them," the General confirmed. "Which means our only options are to let Qrow handle it and hope nothing goes wrong—" he caught the look on her face and sighed. "Yes, I know. I need to do _something,_ but I was hoping to keep plausible deniability for a little while longer."

So that was why he'd told her all of this. Winter inclined her head respectfully and said, "Of course, sir. I was concerned for my sister and acted alone."

The General sighed. "Very well. I'll leave a gap in our security tonight."

"I can leave sooner, sir."

"I know you can—but it'll be easier to sneak you out later, and you'll get there first anyway."

Winter blinked. "Get there before... who, sir?"

He waited until she got it. "But, General—!"

"Taiyang will be there as well, if that helps." General Ironwood sat up straighter. "I'm sorry Winter, but I can't send anyone in an official capacity without bringing the Council down on our heads. I understand that Qrow can be... difficult to work with, but he _is _good at what he does."

Winter grimaced. "I'll leave tonight. Sir."

He smiled. "Thank you, Winter. And good luck."

* * *

That night, he kept his word. It was easy enough to put a few sympathetic faces in the right places, and Winter already knew the grounds like the back of her hand. James watched through the cameras—there were too many of them for her to dodge them all, but it didn't matter much. If the Council asked for the footage, he would give it to them, and tell them honestly that she was allowed to walk around after hours if she so wished.

His mouth twisted into a grimace. Willing or not, he didn't like the idea of throwing her under the bus. Especially since they would catch on eventually no matter what he did. An ache pulsed behind his eyes, and he put his fingers to his temples. How the hell had Ozpin juggled all of this for so many years?

Better not to wonder. He squared his shoulders and watched Winter slip through the final checkpoint. She paused just long enough to glance at the cameras. A nod would have been too obvious, but the moment of eye contact was its own farewell.

It helped. James wasn't Ozpin—for better or worse, he'd have to do this his own way. Blunt and direct. And if that meant he could send Winter after her little sister... he couldn't bring himself to regret any of it at the moment.

As if they'd read his damn mind, the screen on his desk pinged. A call from the Council. James took a second to compose himself, his face smoothing into a more neutral mask. Then he accepted the call and looked at the shadowy figures with bland politeness.

"General Ironwood," greeted the figure in the center. Councilwoman Gosling's voice was crisp and polite, as if nothing was wrong. That didn't mean much, though. There were nine Council members, two representing each kingdom... and one, Gosling, who served as the mediator for the entire group. She'd been in politics longer than he'd been alive. Her tone wasn't much of a clue to what she was thinking.

James couldn't help feeling naked by comparison as he conjured up a smile and nodded to her, and to the eight others on his screen. "Councilors. Is there a problem? It's very late."

Another figure, just to her right, spoke. James recognized this one as Councilman Pepon, one of Vale's representatives—and he had already dispensed with politeness. "In times like these we are rarely _not _in session," he said peevishly. "We have been discussing your message."

_Already._ James nodded again, clinging to his inoffensive smile like a drowning man to a life preserver. "As you said, Councilman, these days have brought extreme pressure down on all of us. I am grateful for your offer, but I can't in good conscience accept protection when our academy is already well defended. Those Riders are needed elsewhere—Grimm populations have been exploding, and of course each kingdom must defend its borders."

James was desperately hoping they would assume he was just _that _bad with politics, and didn't understand the implications of their offer. He wasn't sure if the fact that he really was almost that bad would play in his favor, or not.

Another figure spoke, not bothering to cover the sneer in his voice. "With all due _respect, _General, I question the trustworthiness of these students. In light of recent events... well, you understand." Councilman Dumphrey, representative of Mistral and Leo's longtime headache. His disdain was mutual—James had always thought he was spineless, even for a politician.

"I would agree with you, but Atlas Academy does not have the same epidemic of defective dragons that caused the riots in other kingdoms."

"But is it not still prudent to take precautions?" asked Vacuo's Councilwoman Prudence.

James started to sweat. There were those on the Council who might have supported his decision—at the very least, Ozpin had managed to get Councilor Spinnet into office—but if any of them were sympathetic, they were staying silent. Perhaps they didn't think it was worth the goodwill they'd need to spend to help him.

"Certain precautions, of course." Damn it, he needed to give them something to stall. "We will consider additional security on the barns, though some professors are worried that this might unsettle the students." He knew enough by now not to mention the dragons... but it wasn't enough.

"Good!" snapped Councilwoman Cordovan. James tried not to groan. She was a representative of Atlas, which meant they had far more dealings with one another than he could stomach. "They _should _be unsettled, since it appears that the rogues are ready to declare war!"

Before she could go any further, Councilwoman Gosling interrupted. "General, your trust in your students is admirable... but we must discuss additional protection for Atlas Academy."

James took a deep breath. "I will consider it," he said, and watched as the entire panel fell into disarray. The Councilors who had been interrogating him thus far squawked indignantly and began to talk over one another.

"General Ironwood, you will—"

He hung up on Councilwoman Gosling.

Leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed, James began to laugh. He might as well have sent a squad with Winter, after all. His whole body buzzed with adrenaline, one finger tapping on his desk to relieve the nervous energy. This was it—he could play dumb a while longer, stall for time while the machine of bureaucracy ponderously aligned itself against him... but it was done.

His smile was wide, sharp-edged, and very real.


	56. Draconic Intervention

**Happy Friday, and I hope y'all enjoy another chapter! This time starring the White Fang hatchlings, lots of fire, and a fed-up Nymph.**

* * *

**56\. Draconic Intervention**

* * *

Slowly... cautiously... Sun poked his head out of their hiding place. He immediately started hacking and coughing on the smoke. The world was _still _on fire—there just wasn't much left to burn where they stood. Instead, a wall of flame crossed the horizon, spreading west with the wind.

Yang whistled. "You'd think they'd be more worried about the smoke. _Someone's _gotta notice that."

"Mm." Port put his hands on his hips and squinted at the burning forest. "It would seem that getting rid of us is more valuable to Cinder than the lab itself."

"Okay... but what's she _doing?" _Sun pointed at the inferno. "Is she trying to burn us all to death?"

Blake stiffened. "No. That's not for _us."_

Sun and Yang exchanged confused looks, but Professor Port nodded gravely. "Mount up, students. It seems the enemy is trying to surround our dear companions."

They scrambled to obey. Port had to stop them before they took off—Glory was still in the sky above them, circling. There wasn't much foliage left to cover them, but there was a low ridge nearby that shielded them from her sight for a while. After that, they flew fast and hard. She spotted them and moved to follow... but this time she was alone, and Pit managed force her down into the trees. Soon, she dropped out of sight completely.

The fire didn't. Sun bent low against Huo's neck, breathing into his own elbow to escape some of the smoke. Once they passed directly over it—which took a _long _time, at the rate it was spreading—the air cleared. Crucible was barely visible as a dark point in the sky... but the jet of fire that spread beneath him was blatantly obvious.

Below them, someone whistled. They all dived. Crucible ignored them, if he'd noticed them at all. Others were patrolling the skies overhead—Sun recognized Dusk and Diver, Tumbleweed, and Pearl, and saw a lot of others too far away to identify. A few of those pit dragons tried to harass them on the way down, but didn't bother to chase them very far.

Sun had a feeling it would be a lot harder to fly _out _of the trap.

Huo landed at a run, stumbling a bit to keep up with Nymph as she galloped through the forest. Neptune clung to her neck, his hair streaked with soot and sticking up in all directions. "Hey!" Sun said, grinning and waving.

"Where _were _you people?!" Weiss snapped. Ruby looked like she was seriously considering jumping from Storm to Fang so that she could glomp Yang.

Sun mostly tuned out the argument that followed. Everyone was out of breath from running—but the smoke loomed closer and closer behind them. He glanced at Neptune again, only to find that his best friend was staring at him.

"What?"

"Nothing!" Neptune turned back around. Then, over his shoulder, "Just glad you're okay, dude."

* * *

The return of their missing members was good... but Sage wasn't sure how helpful it was, in the moment. At least before he'd been fairly sure that they were better off, since they weren't inside the ring of fire.

Well. It wasn't a ring _yet._ But they wouldn't catch Crucible before he closed it.

Flames were licking at their heels, now. A shrieking bird exploded out of the treeline, trailing fire like a phoenix. Zircon balked and might have thrown him off if he hadn't been strapped into the saddle. Sage ran a comforting hand along his back.

"It's alright!" He'd never felt more like a liar in his life.

Goodwitch twisted in the saddle. She was seated behind Scarlet on Nimbus—they were running much faster than a human could keep up with on foot. Her piercing glare lingered on the sky for a long moment, then flicked towards an oncoming tangle of trees. Sage had come to dread those places, knowing that they would slow the dragons down.

They waded through the undergrowth... and Goodwitch held up a hand, the signal for them to halt. Baffled, Sage tugged on Zircon's reins. He balked again. His whole body trembled as he cast frantic glances towards the approaching flames.

"Shh," Sage murmured. "Don't worry. She knows what she's doing."

Goodwitch signaled for them to turn. They wriggled further into the thicket, moving perpendicular to the approaching fire and keeping under cover beneath the leaves. Hiding... but that wouldn't last very long.

"We can't go around," Goodwitch said finally. "Not on foot."

Yang sat bolt upright. "If you think I'm going to leave—"

Their professor's eyes flashed. _"That _is out of the question."

Professor Port chuckled. "I do believe Pepper was similarly incapacitated, once upon a time. To borrow an idea from you all..."

Pit's head picked up, and he barked eagerly. Storm whined. Fang, Pit, and Specter all bristled and hissed some disagreement. Her drooping ears picked up a little.

"Now." Goodwitch glanced back at the fire. "We'll need to wait until it's quite close, so that the smoke will cover our escape. Be ready."

Sage had his hands full keeping Zircon calm as they waited. Mercifully—or _not, _depending on whether or not this worked—it didn't take long. At Goodwitch's signal, twelve dragons charged up a small slope and launched themselves into the air. Storm's good wing flared instinctively. Before she could start to fall, Fang and Pit caught her with claws and powers, and lifted her into the air.

They entered the smoke. Sage's eyes stung until there were tears on his cheeks and nothing but murky grey all around him. He fought the urge to breathe as long as he could. When he finally gave in, hot smoke seared his lungs and he doubled over against Zircon's back.

Seconds later, they cleared the worst of it. The forest had been reduced to a ruin of itself, all charred trunks and crisped leaves. Almost nothing green remained to hide them, but clouds of ash hung in the air. Sage pulled his collar up over his mouth and nose, blinking his still-watering eyes. Zircon had calmed now that they were out of the fire. He stroked his neck anyway.

"Well." Port glanced up, squinting through the pale grey haze. "That seems to have done the trick."

* * *

_"Dad!"_

Ilia's eyes snapped open. She'd dozed off where she sat outside her tent. Rubbing at a crick in her neck—and trying to ignore her own racing heart—she stood stiffly and glanced towards the dragonets' tent. Justice hadn't come to get her, which meant he was probably still playing with the younger dragons.

Hazel was in the camp, now, which meant that they were confined in crates most of the day, outside of Justice's visits. Flux didn't seem to mind... but Gigas hated the things with a passion, and Ilia was already dreading the day he figured out how to destroy them. She didn't want to cut their free time short if she could help it. Instead, she walked a slow circuit of the camp's perimeter.

As she rounded the northernmost edge of the clearing, she spotted Brand. He lay sprawled on a small shelf of rock, sunning himself. Hazel sat next to his head. The big fire dragon had started to fill out again—she used to be able to see his ribs, but now he seemed well-fed and content, his eyes half closed.

He'd come a long way from snarling at anyone who got close.

Ilia changed course before she realized what she was doing. Hazel looked up as she approached and said, "All went well?"

"Yes," she said, because the raid had been as smooth as they could have hoped. Then, "No," because Justice had almost spat fire at a hiker.

Hazel blinked. "Maybe you should sit down."

She sat. Brand glanced at her, then shifted so that she could scratch him behind the ears. He purred softly as she worked, until he fell asleep and the sound petered off. "He seems better."

"Getting there. Still haven't found out how he'll react to strangers, but it probably won't be pretty."

"He didn't seem to mind Weiss Schnee," Ilia muttered.

Hazel's eyebrows raised. "Ah. That's good, then."

Ilia glared at him. "You heard me say Weiss _Schnee, _didn't you?"

He shrugged. "She seemed alright to me. Your old friend was with her, and they got along." She opened her mouth to snap at him, but he went on before she could. "That's not the point, anyway. If he decided he doesn't mind her, he's waiting to see if people are a threat before he starts treating them like one. That's good."

Privately, she thought that Brand's judgment could still use some work, but that wasn't what she'd wanted to discuss. "How did you get him to calm down like that?"

Hazel gave her an odd look. "Why?"

"Just curious."

"Uh-_huh._ Well, it's not magic. It's patience. He snaps at me, I don't hit him. Eventually he starts to trust that I'm not going to."

Ilia frowned. That was... just about useless. She would never hurt Justice, and he knew that. So, reluctantly, she told Hazel about the incident with the hikers. He thought about it for a while, absently rubbing Brand's shoulder as he did so. "When was the last time he met someone outside our little group here who _wasn't _a threat?"

"When we visited Brand—" But the two riders hadn't been friends of theirs by any stretch. The Schnee was proof of that. "At Haven—" Though she'd warned him not to say too much around the others. _Justice _hadn't known what might happen if Cinder decided she wasn't pleased with them, but she'd been all too aware of what Mercury's role in the organization was. "I mean..."

Hazel sighed. "He's trying to protect you. Best you can do is make sure he'll listen to you and back down when you tell him to."

That, Ilia decided as she walked away, was a deeply dissatisfying answer. Was she supposed to ignore the fact that her dragon was reacting to every stranger—and every human—like they were a deadly threat? And he _didn't _listen to her in those moments. What if the next random person they ran into was a hunter, with a gun?

Comparing him to Brand was stupid, though. Wasn't it? He was mistrustful because his rider hurt him, not because other people kept attacking them both. It was completely different. And yet... what if things kept getting worse? What if she ruined him?

Ilia glanced at the sky and grimaced when she noticed it was almost sunset. She really should collect Justice and settle the hatchlings into their crates for the night.

She didn't.

Sienna's tent glowed from within. Ilia counted shadows, and her steps faltered. It looked like the Lieutenant and the Albains were in there with her. Maybe she should come back later...

No. Justice had already almost killed a random hiker, she couldn't afford to wait. Ilia strode into the tent with her head held high, only to immediately turn a nervous shade of yellow as the conversation inside stopped dead.

"Sister Ilia," Corsac said, into the tense silence. "We were just discussing our newest recruits." He smiled amiably. "I'm afraid you gave us quite the scare—though it's a good lesson. Such sensitive conversations should be conducted carefully, even inside a tent where we shouldn't be interrupted."

She tensed further at the oily tone in his voice, and the flood of words, but she tried her best to hide it. Her skin and hair reluctantly returned to their usual colors. "I apologize. For barging in." On a conversation that, normally, she would have been a part of. Hairs stood up on the back of her neck.

"What is it?" Sienna asked—shooting Corsac a frustrated glare.

"I mentioned the hikers Justice and I ran into on our last raid. I'm worried. About Justice. He's getting—" _Angry. _"—hard to control."

Corsac made an irritated clucking noise. Even Sienna—who Ilia had expected to sympathize—raised her eyebrows.

"I thought the raid went off without a hitch," she said.

Ilia looked down. "The _raid _did, but he almost hurt one of the hikers. Even after I told him to stop."

The Lieutenant shifted his bulk. "I don't see why you're coming to us. He's your dragon. You trained in Haven."

"I know! And I _am _trying to get him to listen, but I think... it might help if he could meet strangers outside of raids." All around the tent, postures went stiff and mouths opened to protest. Before anyone could say anything, Ilia blurted out in a panic, "Like on bounties! With all the Riders tangled up in the mess with Beacon, the Grimm are getting out of hand. I could take him to a faunus village that has a bounty out, they always get shunted to the end of the listings. We'd make some extra money for the camp, and—"

"That is a... noble goal," Sienna interrupted. She gave Ilia a strange, wary look. "But we need you _here."_

Corsac sneered at her. "I fail to see the problem. _You _were the one who left witnesses, after the... confrontation, in the forest."

Beside him, Fennac's eyes narrowed. "Indeed. You have been... reluctant, in the past, to allow Justice to deal with humans. Even those who mean you harm."

"They didn't!" Ilia glanced at Sienna for help, but her expression had turned unreadable. "It was just a couple of hikers, they weren't _armed—"_

"We're not about to start murdering hikers who pose no threat to us," Sienna agreed. "But that's not really the _point, _Ilia. I agree about this last raid, but..."

The Lieutenant stirred again. "I've seen you pull him back on missions. You can't seriously think the Schnee's thugs don't mean any harm."

"No. I just—"

If Sienna's wariness was alarming, the outright suspicion Corsac fixed her with was far worse. "You were close with Sister Blake, were you not?"

Ilia tried to fight it, but her skin started to turn yellow again. "I—yes, but—"

He glanced at Sienna with a raised brow, as if to say, _'See?'_

"Enough," Sienna snapped. "Ilia, this is _war. _It's not going to be bloodless. Keep him from killing hikers if you can, but don't forget that we didn't _start _any of this."

Ilia might have argued, but... she glanced around at each of their faces—and the Lieutenant's expressionless mask—and fled.

_"This isn't giving ourselves an edge anymore, Adam! We're losing every egg, what's even the point of—"_

She clapped both hands over her ears. Her skin blended instinctively with her environment, to protect her. Useless. She couldn't stop remembering the way they'd gone quiet when she walked in, the suspicion in their eyes... mentioning Blake.

_They think it's me._

Ilia stuffed her shaking hands under her arms as she strode towards the hatchlings' tent. Her mind whirled through half-formed plans, ways she could show them her innocence and loyalty. Then she slid to a stop, staring at the darkened tent. Justice was inside, playing with the dragonets. He wasn't a bad dragon. He wasn't cruel or angry, or _any _of it. He was just...

_"I'm worried." _Blake's voice had been hushed. She'd stood with her arms folded, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds. _"It's like it's poisoning him..."_

Her skin turned a sickly green, nausea welling up... but she knew what she had to do.

* * *

Neptune had never felt as exposed as he did that night, walking in a ragged column through the burnt-out forest. They couldn't stop until they had some kind of cover. Dragons flew through the distant sky constantly, in an ever-widening spiral that soon threatened to catch them in _another _hunt. By the time they reached the edge of the forest fire, the closest speck was near enough he could make out its color, a deep reddish-brown, and guess that it was Paprika or Brick.

But they _did _get to the end. Eventually. Neptune might have stopped to kiss the ground, or maybe the healthy trees that hid them from view... but they were still too close to the flaming circle Crucible had made. The dragons were all exhausted, which meant that it was time for their riders to get out of the saddle and walk, now that they could move a little slower.

He stumbled along beside Sun, tripping over roots almost constantly even though there was plenty of scattered moonlight to see by. When he looked over at his friend, he noticed there was ash and soot stuck in his hair, dusting his shoulders, and streaked across his torso. Helplessly, he waved a hand at him and said, "You've got a little something, um..."

"Everywhere?" Sun grinned. "So do you, man."

The urge to fix his hair rose up. He quashed it, and chided himself for being stupid. Then Sun made a face and tried to dust off his chest, and Neptune suddenly found a nearby bush absolutely fascinating. He ignored Nymph's amused chuff.

Sun bumped their shoulders together, making him jump. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Neptune cleared his throat. "Um... yeah."

"Super convincing, dude. Ten out of ten."

"No, seriously! I'm _great._ Just spent hours running for my life from a giant wall of fire and wondering if my best friend got eaten by a giant dragon, who doesn't love that?"

"N'aww." Sun slung an arm over his shoulder and chuckled. "Crucible wouldn't eat me. People give him indigestion."

"He'd _know_ that," Neptune grumbled. Sun's weight at his side was very warm, and he hoped like hell that it was too dark for faunus to see the color pink.

The weight suddenly increased, as Sun leaned into him even further. It was enough to make Neptune stumble. "Ha! You were worried about me."

Flustered and off-balance and rapidly approaching total shutdown, Neptune couldn't think of anything to say except a soft and sincere, "Yeah."

Nymph tilted her head to regard the two of them with increasing interest.

Sun quit trying to push Neptune into his dragon, though he left his arm where it was. "Oh. Uh... thanks." He sounded a bit flustered himself.

Neptune leaned into the warmth at his side, just a little. "Try not to disappear like that again, okay? It... kinda freaked me out."

"Don't get into super dangerous situations without you. Got it."

"That is _not _what I said!"

"Too bad!" Sun gave him a playful shove. "We're the ultimate partners in crime! Daring rogues, facing off against incredible odds! Laughing in the face of danger!"

"I don't think you should laugh in Crucible's face," Neptune said, mock-serious. "He might take it personally."

For the next several seconds Sun hung from his shoulder, doubled over in laughter. He tried to stifle it with a fist—they really shouldn't be making too much noise—and then, when that didn't work, muffled it into Neptune's jacket.

He supposed this was a nicer way to die than pissing off a pit dragon...

"Hey... Sun?"

Nymph's ears perked up. The laughter finally died down, and Sun went back to walking like a normal person.

"Yep?"

Neptune put a hand on his burning face to cool it down, and to stop _whatever _had been about to slip out. "You... fly good?"

Sun stared at him. Even _Huo _gave him an incredulous, almost pitying look. And Nymph reared up in indignation, turning a glare on her rider the likes of which he'd never seen. Neptune froze—like a squirrel that had just spotted a hawk.

The hawk narrowed her eyes at him and said, "Nnneh-toon _dum."_

* * *

Nymph loved Neptune, she really did. But _this _was a bridge too far.

He squawked indignantly and tried to defend himself. Not very well—even _he _had to know he was being dumb, at this point. Nymph put a paw on her rider's head to silence him. Huo started to laugh.

"Nneh-toon."

"Yeah?"

"Nno." Nymph nudged him in the chest, moving him out of the way, and turned her head to fix her eyes on Sun. He stared at her, looking honestly _confused._ "Nneh-toon. Lurr... _lurrv."_

Huo was still laughing. Other people were looking at them now, which wouldn't do. Nymph whacked the back of her brother's head with her tail. He finally quieted down, and the others went back to their own conversations.

"Larvae?" Sun guessed. Huo rolled his eyes and snorted a puff of smoke into his rider's face. He coughed and tried to fan it away.

"Nneh-toon. Lurrv. _Zuh."_

Neptune's eyes widened as he realized what she was saying. He wrapped both arms around her muzzle in a panic, cutting off the last word.

"Sun," Huo finished, with a lazy smirk.

Dead silence. Neptune dropped away from her muzzle and stood stiff with panic. Sun stared at her. Then at Huo. Then...

"Uh... Nep? Did she just say you love me?"

"What?" Neptune let out a high-pitched, terrified laugh. "No! No, she was just saying that I luh... lava?" He hung his head. "...Yes."

"Oh." Sun ran a hand through his hair. "Wow. Um."

Nymph suddenly had a horrible feeling about this. "Sun likes Neptune too, right?" she blurted.

Huo snorted. "I don't know. I still think this stuff is dumb."

"What? Then why did you _help_ me?"

Neptune's shoulders curved inward, like he was trying to fold himself into a ball. That finally shocked Sun out of his daze. "Hey!" he said, pulling him into a hug. "It's okay, man. I'm not, like... mad, or anything."

Nymph's ears folded back. Neptune let his forehead fall onto Sun's shoulder and groaned.

Sun winced. "And that came out way more let-you-down-easy than I wanted." He brushed a lock of hair off Neptune's forehead. "Nep, just listen for a second."

"...Okay?"

"You're my best friend. Like... I want us to be sitting on a park bench feeding the birds or whatever when we're eighty. That kind of best friend. And if there's, like, kissing and stuff involved, that would be... really awesome, actually. But like... I don't want to screw up the park bench thing by jumping in without thinking, you know?"

"Park benches are good," Neptune mumbled. Nymph had to snap at Huo so that he wouldn't start laughing again.

"So... is it okay if I think about it for a bit first? I, uh... somebody told me to do that once, and last time it turned out to be a good call."

"Yeah!" Neptune's grin looked more like a wince. "Just... don't take too long?"

Sun hugged him again. "Promise."

Once the conversation was over, Nymph finally looked away from the two riders... and noticed that Nora was turned most of the way around in the saddle, bouncing up and down with excitement. Jaune, who was close enough to have heard the whole conversation, caught her eye and made a frantic cutting motion across his throat.

Nymph's tail drooped guiltily. She was starting to think Huo had been right about all this—maybe she shouldn't have said anything...

A hand patted her shoulder. She looked over, and pressed her nose against Neptune's chest. "Sssorry."

"It's okay." He managed a weak grin. "I feel a bit better now that it's out in the open. Really!" His shoulders slumped. "And he didn't run away screaming, so there's that."

Huo scoffed and tossed his head. "Idiot."

Nymph bared her teeth at him.

Her brother rolled his eyes. "What? Your rider's acting like that was a no or something. He heard the stupid bench thing, didn't he?" Then, more to himself, "They _better _not sit around feeding birds when they're old. Unless they're feeding them to me."


	57. In Too Deep

**Good morning folks! Here's another chapter, starring White Fang dragons and a knapsack of unusual significance.**

* * *

**57\. In Too Deep**

* * *

Justice pounced on Gigas. The little hatchling snapped playfully at his paws, squirming and whacking him with his tail. He huffed smoke. Violet eyes stared up at him, wide and innocent like he had no _idea _what the problem could possibly be.

His leash, chewed almost all the way through, tangled in Flux's horns. She whined and tugged on it to try and free her head. The sharp points dragged against the rope as it slid off, until it was hanging on by a thread.

"I already _told _you," Justice groaned. "You can't go outside without your rider. If the human sees you, he'll tell his boss, and they might attack us."

Gigas' ears drooped. He poked his head towards the tent's entrance—it was mostly obscured by crates, but a little light could be seen falling across the floor. Justice nosed at him and said, "I _know, _but the Lieutenant will take you outside soon. They just want to make sure you don't... get lost."

It was _her _fault, really. Everyone knew that dragons were loyal, and that none of them would ever abandon their riders... none except for her. Justice growled, making Gigas twang in alarm and try to hide his head under one of his stubby wings.

"Not you," he mumbled, licking the dragonet's nose in apology.

The tent flap moved. Justice shuffled his wings awkwardly so that he could turn in the cramped space. It was Ilia. There was something about the look on her face that made him tense, instinctively bracing for enemies to appear.

She frowned at the hatchlings and said, "Come outside." Gigas protested loudly at being left out of the conversation, and started chewing on his leash again.

Ilia saw the damage and winced. She moved towards the door, hesitated, cursed under her breath, then stopped long enough to tie the two almost-severed ends of the rope together. Gigas chomped on one of her pant legs, which she ignored. He also resumed his attempts to chew through the leash. When Justice tried to scold him, she just sighed and shook her head and gestured for him to come outside.

Justice followed his rider to the tent she slept in and waited while she picked up a rucksack and slung it over her shoulder, then saddled him in a rush. Once his tack was adjusted, she led him to the edge of the woods. She made to go further. He balked.

"I know it's dark," she whispered, "but it's okay. I'll lead you."

"Muh. Miss-uhn?"

Her skin changed color. He couldn't tell what it had changed into, it was too dark outside, but he could see that it had gone several shades paler. "No. It's not a mission." She shot an anxious glance towards the camp. "We need to go."

Go? Go _where?_ He rumbled his confusion, and she shushed him. "They think—it's not important right now. We just can't stay here."

Justice's tail lashed behind him. Did she mean they needed to move camp? But no one else was outside. Hardly anyone was even awake—except the ones on watch, and Ilia had taken care to avoid them.

His head reared up as he realized. "Rrrun? Lake?"

Ilia looked down. "Yeah. Like Blake."

"Nno!"

"Shh!" She ran a hand along his neck. "I need you to trust me. There are... there are people in the camp that are suspicious of us—_me, _it's isn't your fault—and I don't think we're safe anymore."

He shook his head. Why couldn't they tell Sienna or the Lieutenant or... well, maybe not the Albains, but they could tell _someone _that there were people saying those things about them. They were more loyal than anyone! How could she just—?

"It isn't just that." Ilia stroked his nose. "I wanted to go on other missions. Ones where you'd meet good people, where you'd only have to fight Grimm. And that _got _them suspicious, like I must be going soft if I don't want to leave a trail of dead hikers—" She cut herself off, much too late.

She was taking him away again. Like she had at Haven, or when he met Brand the first time. He finally, _finally _had siblings that wrestled each other under his belly and pounced on his tail, ones he could talk to, and she wanted to take him away again. Because of the human hikers. Because she was scared of him.

He sat down and said, "No."

_"Justice! _We need to move!"

He put his head on his paws and shut his eyes pointedly.

Frustrated, Ilia ground her foot into the dirt. "You don't even _like _it here!"

He hadn't. Still didn't, really, but now Gigas and Flux were in the camp too, which meant it was better than everywhere else. Much better than where _Blake _and all those humans were.

"We're going," Ilia said flatly. "Now. Or... or I'll feed you fish and tubers, like Harbinger eats!"

Justice didn't move. Not even an ear flick. He would just do what _she _did and hunt in the woods. It couldn't be that hard if a hatchling could figure it out.

"I have a little money with me. We'll find a dragon-friendly store and get all the treats you want."

Smoke curled between his jaws. There wasn't a treat or toy in the world that could make being alone again okay.

"Justice, _please!" _They might _hurt _us, do you understand? If they think we're the ones who keep setting off the Dust..." She put a hand on his back.

Justice didn't respond. _She _had done that, not him or Ilia. He wasn't going to leave the little ones alone with her just because some of the Fang were wrong.

A terrible, steely edge came into Ilia's voice. "We're doing this. Follow me now, or follow me later. I don't care."

Twigs broke. His heart leaping in his chest, Justice craned his neck to see his rider stalking further into the trees. She looked over her shoulder as she walked, moving slowly and making a noise with every step.

Justice howled. He tried to smother it, but the sound ripped its way free of him anyway. Ilia stopped. Waited a moment. When he still didn't move, she pushed further into the shadows. He watched her disappear.

He curled into himself, burying his head under one wing. It muffled the pathetic whines and whimpers he made—the sounds of a new hatchling. His tail wound around his legs. The small noises turned into a roar that shook his entire frame. His chest heaved, every breath squeezed out of him the moment he took it in, like Brand had put his paws down on his back and was _pressing..._

Others heard the noise. He recognized familiar shouts, a stream of curses in the Lieutenant's deep voice. Harbinger's paw at his back. A touch, soft and warm and heartwrenching, of Brand's nose against his side.

When he didn't rouse, they vanished. Many went into the woods. Others returned to the camp muttering among themselves. Harbinger and Brand hovered until he spat fire and shrieked at them to _go away._

Silence. And into that silence, paws padding almost soundlessly against the earth. A soft whiff of breath.

Justice exploded out of the ball he'd crunched himself into, snarling and steaming in the cool evening air. _She _melted back into the shadows... but he could still feel her sun-yellow eyes on him. Watching. Pitying, like this wasn't _her _fault in the first place. Like she hadn't told him...

And then she, too, was gone.

* * *

Even with her nightvision, Ilia could hardly see. Everything had gone blurry after she heard Justice's horrible, anguished shriek. _Stupid, _thinking he wouldn't make noise. She'd expected him to follow once she showed him she was really serious. Now the whole camp was awake.

She turned back around. Hesitated. If she popped out now, would he just dig in his heels again?

Too late. Members of the Fang came crashing through the undergrowth, made clumsy by panic. Questions rained down around Justice, while Ilia backed further into the trees. Fear made her freeze, her skin rippling into deep greys and blacks. Even faunus eyes slid right past her—but they were getting closer. She recognized the beginning of a spiral search pattern.

Ilia retreated into the woods. She lost sight of Justice, lost sight of _everything _except the flashes of unfriendly eyes in the dark. And there she stayed, caught between the Fang and her unwillingness to leave her partner behind.

It took a long time for the searchers to stop. They kept driving her further and further into the woods, until she wasn't totally sure where Justice was anymore. Would they lead him back to the camp? Would he _go?_

Her foot skidded on wet leaves. She landed hard on her side, tried to push herself up... fell back, her breath hitching. He'd hate her now. He _should _hate her.

Branches shifted overhead, bathing her in moonlight. She froze for a moment, breathless, waiting for a shout—this would be as good as a spotlight to a faunus. There was nothing. The Fang had all gone back to the camp. She didn't get up. Why should she? Blake, the Fang, and now Justice—she'd finally managed to ruin _everything _good in her worthless life.

A noise behind her, like sandpaper rasping over stone. Ilia shot to her feet in an instant. Her ears strained to listen over the hammering of her heart. She looked around and saw only thick foliage and thicker shadows.

"Justice?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

It wasn't Justice.

Motion near the corner of her eye. Ilia jumped and cricked her neck searching for the source. Every time she thought she'd spotted it, whatever was moving in the dark vanished again. Tension wound tighter and tighter in her gut, until a sudden explosion of sound overhead made her yelp and throw her arms up.

A dragon landed in front of her.

Ilia stumbled backwards, tripped over a tree root, and landed sprawled in the dirt. Its face emerged into the moonlight, making its pale yellow eyes shine like miniature suns. Sienna's hybrid—alive and well and angry.

The saboteur had never been one of the Fang. Of course posting guards on the grunts' tents hadn't worked. All this time they should have been searching the woods...

Cold dread settled in the pit of her stomach as the other shoe dropped. _This _was what had happened to the missing hunters. Ilia fumbled for the knife she kept in her boot. The hybrid let out another threatening hiss. She froze. Drew her hand back, slowly.

"Do—" her voice cracked with fright. "Do you remember me?"

The creature stepped closer. It had grown. Now it was almost as tall as she was at the shoulder, easily the size of a horse. The hiss petered off, but it pulled back its muzzle to bare long, needle-thin fangs. Hot, dry breath ruffled her hair.

Ilia swallowed. She needed to get away from this thing and find Justice. If she told Sienna and the others that the _real _saboteur was out here...

No. It had been avoiding detection for weeks, _months,_ now. She couldn't count on finding it again. Couldn't count on the others believing her if she did. Couldn't count on much of _anything, _anymore.

She'd steal a trick from its book, then. Grab the knife, strike fast, go for the eyes to blind it, then run while it was distracted and in pain. Ilia waited, tense and coiled like a spring, as the dragon approached. There was almost no sound as its paws touched the ground. Its pale eyes stayed fixed on her. A little closer...

It moved within arms reach. Ilia burst into motion, shoving her hand into her boot and drawing the knife. Her hand came up in a wide slash—and it struck like a viper. Teeth clamped down on her forearm. She dropped the knife with a sharp scream. Then the world lurched and something slammed into her back, and the next thing she knew her mouth tasted like dirt and blood. She'd bitten her tongue.

A roar sounded in the woods nearby, sending birds scattering in a panic. Ilia groaned and tried to roll over, but landed on the arm that had just been bitten and almost blacked out. Something enormous rushed over her head. When she finally pushed herself up so that she could see, Justice was rearing up in front of her, and several trees were on fire. The hybrid fell into a crouch, screeched in outrage, and vanished into the woods.

Silence.

"Justice..." She tried to get up, forgetting about the arm again. When she yelped, he surged forward. Ilia wrapped her good arm around his neck and buried her face in his scales. "I'm sorry! I'm _so _sorry, please..."

He nudged her away. Her heart dropped as though she'd missed a step—but it wasn't a rejection. Instead, he let out a little bark and nuzzled at her arm. She extended it and winced. Not as bad as it might have been... but there were several long, deep scratches.

"Lah... sssrry."

"No." She hugged him again, heedless of her bleeding arm. It could have fallen off, and in that moment she wouldn't have cared. "Don't—I didn't—you—"

Ilia couldn't speak. All she could manage were mangled fragments, in between hiccups and sobs, and Justice wasn't listening to those anyway. He crooned softly and licked her face and whimpered like he had when he was young.

She left him alone, and _he _was sorry. So she squeezed tighter and forced herself to say, fragment by fragment, "I won't—again—_never—_I promise."

He purred in her ear. "Gud."

"We really should go," she said, once she'd recovered enough to speak. "I'm _not _leaving without you. But if we stay here... things are going to get bad. We'll probably get hurt. We might die."

Justice whined. He glanced over his shoulder at the camp, the agony of the decision etched in every line of his body. His head drooped. Finally, with a defeated slump to his shoulders, he took the back of her shirt gently in his teeth and lifted her onto his back.

After takeoff, as the night air whipped at her face, she couldn't stop thinking about Blake. She'd run away when things got bad. So had Ilia. But Brand never did. Adam shouted at him, hit him, chained him up all alone in a cave... and in quiet moments, he still purred when his rider scratched him behind the ears. Ilia tore Justice away from the only real home he'd ever known. He crooned to her and licked her wounds and told her he was sorry.

Ilia had known dragons were loyal—but it was one thing to know it intellectually, and another to feel Justice comforting her even after she'd abandoned him in the dark. The bond wasn't just some nebulous thing riders liked to talk about. It was unbreakable trust and pure devotion.

So... what the hell happened to that hybrid?

* * *

Another mission followed the bad one, the one that made Cinder yell at them. This one went better, but it didn't really feel like it—Jade and Rudder weren't allowed to go. It was supposed to be about _stealth. _Jade had to admit that it was hard being stealthy in human buildings, especially when there were stairs involved. Waiting was still awful.

Their riders came back with good news, at least. They'd infiltrated the same SDC injection site, this time with several vials of burn and energy Dust. Mercury cheerfully reported that the machinery on the top floor was pretty much melted slag, and they'd even managed to slip out without dealing with Jacques' mercenaries.

Cinder shouted at them anyway. They were gone too long, and Mercury was too smug, and were they really patting themselves on the back for something they should have already _done?_

Jade almost snapped at her. Only Emerald's hand on her neck and Strike's piercing glare stopped her.

It was Watts Cinder was really angry at. Jade knew that. She also knew that the pit dragons weren't on a mission like she'd said. They wouldn't go just because some human asked them to. Not _all _of them, anyway. She didn't know where they were, but the silence around the lab made her uneasy.

Emerald was uneasy, too. She tried to stay out of Cinder's way, and glared at Watts whenever their paths crossed. There was a bag next to her bedroll. It used to have a lockpicking kit and a few other tools for breaking into buildings, as well as a bit of food and a change of clothes. Everything she might need on a mission. As Watts' smiles widened and Cinder's temper frayed, the rest of Emerald's belongings migrated into the pack. A beat up paperback, all her lien, a wooden queen long since separated from her pawns, polished smooth by calloused fingertips.

That night, the tension peaked. Jade couldn't sleep. Instead she wandered the empty valley, feeling the absence of the pit dragons and the students like a physical force. It was still dark when Emerald slipped out of the room she shared with Mercury. She eased the door closed behind her, whisper silent, and walked past Watts' lab. She reached the door of Cinder's cabin and knocked softly.

The door opened. Warm light spilled out. It closed again, and Jade sat in the shadows for a long while. When Emerald emerged again, she retraced her steps back to her own cabin. The next morning the book, the lien, and the chess piece were back in their places beside her sleeping bag.

She didn't talk about it. Jade didn't ask. It was hard enough hiding her disappointment... and she didn't think she wanted to know what Cinder had said.


	58. Hornets' Nest

**Happy Friday everyone! Here's a chapter starring Fang as the designated campfire and Specter playing high-stakes fetch.**

* * *

**58\. Hornets' Nest**

* * *

Fang woke up that morning feeling like he was carrying the whole world on his back.

The whole world turned out to be just Pit and Storm, but they were plenty heavy enough. He grumbled and flicked them with his tail until they got off. Sometimes it was hard being the team fire dragon when there was no campfire and his siblings were being such wimps. It wasn't even that cold!

He reached under his wing to nudge his rider awake. She groaned and rolled over. Fang huffed smoke into her face. Coughing, Yang sat up. "Okay, okay! Jeez."

They walked. Only Goodwitch seemed to have any idea where they were or which way they should go—though Port kept squinting at the sun and muttering things like, "Yes, west, very good! _Very _good—ah, hang on a moment, perhaps we ought to be moving north by northwest..." Fang had lost all sense of direction somewhere between Crucible's chase and the giant ring of fire.

There was an uneasy feeling in the air. Blake kept twitching and looking over her shoulder, until Weiss grabbed her hand and whispered something in her ear. Even Fang caught himself tensing up at distant animal noises. The only bright spot was that there weren't any pit dragons flying overhead.

Fang stepped gingerly over a brook. Yang had to hop from stone to stone, and once almost lost her balance. He let her hang on to one of his horns. She grinned sheepishly at him as she landed on the far side. "Thanks. I really don't want to deal with wet—"

_Snap._

His ears went back. Next to him, Storm picked up her head and whined nervously. That was closer than before, somewhere a little ahead of them and off to the right. And, now that it was practically on top of them... it didn't _sound _like an animal.

"What is it?" Ruby whispered.

Pit's eyes stayed fixed on the woods. Fang followed his gaze, squinting at the thick foliage in the hopes of catching a glimpse of black fur or bright scales. He hoped it was a Grimm.

It wasn't. The wind changed, and Pepper reared in alarm. "Rrrun!"

They bolted after her, only to skid to a stop when Inkwell leaped out of the brush in front of them. Fang whirled around. Kite clung to the upper branches of an oak tree, while Granite circled around behind them.

He roared, and barreled towards Inkwell at top speed. Pepper got there first, bowling her over onto her side and wrestling in the dirt while Granite leaped at Nimbus and Zircon in the back. Kite hopped from branch to branch, watching.

Fang grabbed Inkwell's tail in his teeth and tried to drag her off Pepper. Between the two of them they managed to push her out of the way so that the others could flee. Granite came tearing after them, toppling full-grown trees in her wake.

Kite dove. Her back claws raked over their heads, almost tearing Ruby right off Storm's back. Penny protected them. Armor unfolded over Storm's good wing, which she raised to cover her rider as claws sparked off metal.

Nimbus launched himself into the air. He had to scrabble at several trees before he managed to get his wings going, but before long he was overhead too, giving Storm and all the others that couldn't take off yet a reprieve from Kite's dive-bombing. Then he swerved too close to a tree and bashed into it shoulder-first, and had to climb above the canopy to keep from hurting himself.

"Cliff!" Scarlet shouted. "Bear left!" Fang roared again and poured on the speed. They could take off once they reached the cliff—and it would probably be up to him and Pit to make sure that Storm landed safely.

When they got back to civilization, he was going to make Yang buy him his weight in spicy food and chew toys.

* * *

Specter didn't see the cliff. In his defense, he was busy—Inkwell was almost neck and neck with him, and he had turned his head towards her. The horrible metal plate on her temple glinted, sending a shudder down his spine.

The ground disappeared. Specter squawked and flared his wings, wobbling a little in the air before he steadied himself. Open air was a little better... but that wouldn't last. Pit and Fang had to put Storm down as soon as they could, and there were already more pit dragons bearing down on them. A _lot _more. He squinted, trying to count, and lost track at eight.

Pyrrha had to jump off Twiggy when they reached the edge, so that she would be able to take off. Nimbus landed long enough for Scarlet to grab her arm. He struggled with the weight, but managed to get into the air.

Pepper swept low over Inkwell's back. At first Specter thought she might be trying to drive her down into the trees. Instead, Professor Goodwitch slid from the saddle and dropped onto the pit dragon's back. She caught her balance, _barely, _by wrapping both arms around the dragon's neck. The metal plate was just out of reach. Her fingers snatched at it once, twice...

No good. She leaped free, and landed in a crouch behind Port.

"Go!" Yang's voice. Specter scanned the trees and found Fang fighting his way through the canopy. Storm was nowhere to be seen—he'd probably just dropped her off on the ground. Yang stood in his saddle, wielding a long stick almost as thick around as her arm. She must have grabbed it from one of the trees Granite toppled, or maybe it was a branch that had snapped as Fang broke through the canopy.

Wherever it had come from, she'd obviously seen the perfect example of how to use it. "Screw this!" she bellowed, and dropped onto Granite. She landed a little better—her left hand wrapped around one of the earth dragon's ears, and with her right she swung the makeshift club at the metal plate. It didn't budge, not even when she got a knee up against the dragon's cheek and used it as leverage to try and pry the two apart. Granite tossed her head, veering violently to one side as she did, and Yang went flying.

"Specter—" Weiss called out, but he was already diving. His forepaws snagged Yang out of the air, several of his claws curling securely under her arms. His wings burned, and he groaned—carrying two humans at once _hurt—_but his ears stood tall with pride. It was the first time in a while he'd felt like a good dragon. The affectionate pat on his shoulder was just a bonus.

Specter's good mood lasted just long enough for him to realize that Paprika had arrived. He dodged a swipe of her claws, wincing at the pull in his wings, and swung Yang out of the way of a blast of wind from Kite.

"What do we do?" demanded Huo. "We can't outrun them!"

"No shit!" Fang snapped. "We're _running, _they're _flying!"_

Pit ducked Inkwell's tail. "We need to lead them away from Storm!"

Specter's ears pricked up. He dove towards the trees, dipping one wing to circle around Storm. She was galloping as fast as she could... but Fang was right. They wouldn't be able to get away like this. He took a deep breath. He wasn't used to doing this, but... he'd been able to, when that _thing _was on his head.

Another shiver. Cold spread through his chest and stomach, and when he breathed out, pearly mist filled the air. Specter knew instinctively that _this _was the killing mist. Not what he wanted, but if he eased up on his powers a bit...

Soon he was exhaling cool clouds instead. He flew in haphazard patterns through the trees, blurring away the forest below and shouting, "Hide!" as he passed over Storm.

"But—"

He couldn't stay to talk. Kite came streaking towards the fog he'd worked so hard to create, and he doubted it would stand up to a strong wind. Specter met her in midair, biting and snapping and taking care to keep Yang out of her reach.

Nymph arrived seconds later, grabbing the wind dragon by the neck and dragging her higher into the air. She thrashed and struggled in ways no dragon should. Nymph had to let her go or risk seriously hurting her, but by then the fog was already dissipating on its own. Storm was nowhere to be seen.

"One down," Nymph called. "Who's next?"

* * *

Several minutes later, Ao Guang skimmed over the surface of a small lake, his webbed feet sending up plumes of spray when they touched the water. Pearl snapped at the tip of his tail as she followed right behind him.

He wasn't sure how far they'd traveled since hiding Storm. They weren't exactly moving in a straight line, but his wings were already feeling a little strained from flying at top speed. Only Freya and Zircon, so far, had managed to peel off from the main group with their riders. It took a lot of work to distract the pit dragons enough for someone to get away without any of them noticing. Specter's trick had only worked once—now Kite followed him and blew away his mist as soon as he produced it. Since then they'd had to rely on attacking the pit dragons in a group, and that got harder as more of them got away.

Guang didn't even _like _Nymph's plan. He wanted to stay with his sisters—but he didn't have any better ideas. So when Pepper roared, "Again!" he whirled in midair and latched onto Pearl. Her head whipped back and forth, but he clung to her so that she couldn't see. They skimmed the lake again, and both separated to gain a little more altitude so that they wouldn't end up in the water and fall behind.

He and Pearl kept swiping at each other, Guang mostly with open paws and her with claws outstretched. A scratch on his leg made him wince. A pained bellow above him almost made him fall out of the sky. He wheeled around.

Dusk and Crucible circled around Specter as he struggled with both his extra burden and Kite. He dropped almost twenty feet, straight down, to avoid a blast of fire. Fang intervened, sweeping over Dusk's head with his claws outstretched. She lunged—her teeth sank into the tip of his tail. He struggled, but she wouldn't let go. Fang flapped madly, buffeting Dusk with his wings. Crucible circled around his other side.

Pepper finally reached them. She collided head-on with Crucible, knocking him away from Fang. His wings flared as he turned to face her.

Crucible wasn't a fast flier. He was too big and heavy, and had never flown long distances before they met him. Only his fire breath made him dangerous in the air—but the instant the fight turned close-quarters, years of vicious brawls in the cages came into play. He gripped her with all four paws, his tail winding around her back leg. Pepper twisted and bit his shoulder. He dug in and turned her in his hold until her saddle came into view. His mouth opened.

In desperation Pepper kicked him away—but his claws left horrible gouges as they ripped free. Her wings flared instinctively, but she was upside-down, and the wind forced them shut. She hit the lake on her back and disappeared in a massive splash.

"Guang!"

He snapped out of his horrified trance. Pearl streaked towards the lake, only for Nymph to crash into her and grapple her. "Come on!" she shouted. Ao Guang took a deep breath, and dove. Nymph let go of Pearl in time to follow him. The last thing he heard before he hit the water was her final cry, "Specter, now!"

Guang didn't see what happened after that—he only felt a chill spread through the water, reaching him almost twenty feet down. It vanished as he approached the lake bed, or maybe he just stopped noticing since the water was already cold.

Pepper lay on her side, half-buried in the mud. Professor Goodwitch was the only one moving, tugging loose the last strap on Port's legs. She looked up as they approached, then jerked her head towards the unconscious fire dragon. Ao Guang grabbed her saddle in his teeth, using it as a handhold as he swam upwards.

Nymph joined him. He resisted at first when she tugged them forwards instead of up, but when she insisted he let her lead the way. Pepper wasn't unconscious, like he'd been afraid of—as they swam, her eyes opened and fixed on him. She held her breath, but didn't try to swim. He was glad. He could smell blood in the water, he didn't want her injury to get any worse.

Guang grew anxious after Ren tapped his shoulder once—the signal that they would need to surface soon. He knew his rider could hold on a while longer, but what about Pepper, or the other humans? He wasn't sure he'd be able to hold his breath this long after getting scratched like that and falling into the water without expecting it.

Just when he was about to aim for the surface and risk the pit dragons, the bottom of the lake sloped upwards. The water brightened—then dimmed as they passed into the shade of the woods. He and Nymph pulled Pepper the rest of the way up. They helped her up onto the shore and under the thickest trees they could find. Guang slipped back into the water to find Pepper's riders. He was startled to discover that they were already most of the way across. Professor Goodwitch had an arm under Port's and was dragging him through the water much more quickly than he though humans could swim. He supposed it made sense—she was a water rider.

Guang carried the two of them the rest of the way to shore. As soon as they broke the surface, Port started coughing uncontrollably, though he tried to do it quietly in case there were more pit dragons nearby. They returned to where Nymph stood guard over Pepper. Their teacher lay on her side, her chest bleeding sluggishly as it rose and fell. As they approached, she cracked one eye open and mumbled, "'Eet."

He knelt by her head and, once he had enough breath back, murmured reassurances in her ear. "It's alright, my dear."

"Ssstoo-dents."

Goodwitch grimaced and glanced up. "I suspect the chase has passed us by."

"We'll find them," Port promised. He patted her forehead and mustered a smile. "For now, rest."

* * *

With evening setting in and Pepper injured, they had no choice but to stop where they were. Neptune and Ren had two tents between them. One went to bandaging Pepper, while they laid the other flat on the ground under one of her wings.

Neptune tried to stay positive. When they risked sending Ren up a tree to check on the situation above them and he reported that Pearl and Glory had both stayed in the area, he told himself that at least they'd managed to draw two of the pit dragons away from the others. When the sun started thinking about setting and the temperature dropped, leaving them all shivering in wet clothes, he tried to be grateful that they were stranded with a fire dragon. And, when they all snuggled up to Pepper's broad stomach—even Nymph and Guang—he tried not to dwell on the fact that it was Ren sitting next to him instead of Sun.

He also tried not to think about their _last _conversation. Because Sun was his best friend first and it was _stupid _to be frustrated with the way things had been left hanging when they were all being hunted by pit dragons. Very stupid. Which was why he was going to stop doing it any minute now.

"Mister Lie, Mister Vasilias?"

Old instincts made Neptune jerk to attention the instant Professor Goodwitch spoke. "Huh?"

"We appreciate your assistance."

"Indeed!" agreed Port. "And of course, Pepper thanks you as well." She rumbled agreement. He gave her another affectionate pat. He'd been quiet and sober at first, but had cheered up to his usual self once the wound was bandaged and it became obvious that his dragon would recover. The cuts were deep, but they hadn't hit any vital organs.

"Oh. Um." Neptune rubbed the back of his neck. "You're welcome, Professor."

Professor Port chuckled. "Really, m'boy, call me Peter. After _this _many adventures... and near-death experiences..." He cleared his throat. "Well! I'd say we're on a first name basis, wouldn't you?"

A beat.

"That goes for you too, Glynda. It's weird to keep calling him Mister Vasilias."

Neptune imagined calling their strictest professor _Glynda _and swallowed nervously. "Uh... do we have to?"

Port clapped him on the shoulder. "I insist!"

Professor Goodwitch noticed the panicked look on his face, rolled her eyes, and said, "It _is _rather unprofessional, Peter. Students should address their teachers as such."

"Nonsense. You never called me Professor when you were in my class!"

"Peter—"

"Or Peter, for that matter. I believe the usual term was _Mustache."_

Goodwitch pinched the bridge of her nose. "That example is... perhaps not ideal."

Port looked over at them and beamed genially. "Boys, if it makes you more comfortable... you are free to call me Mustache instead."

Neptune glanced at Ren, whose only reaction to all this was a single raised eyebrow. He sighed and wrapped his hands around his knees. He wished Sun was here—there was _no way _he was going to believe this.


	59. Scatter!

**Hello all! This chapter is starring Yang getting cold feet, a suspiciously polite Qrow Branwen, and sweet aerial maneuvers.**

* * *

**59\. Scatter!**

* * *

"Where the hell is Ruby?!"

Yang's feet jerked and kicked in empty space, while Specter whistled and listed heavily to one side or the other. Weiss leaned out, her head just barely poking over the edge of her saddle. "I didn't see!"

Fang sidled up next to them, flapping his wings in careful rhythm so that they didn't knock into Specter's. "Sssafe," he called out over the wind.

She opened her mouth to demand a much longer answer, but before she had a chance two enormous shadows loomed on either side of Specter. Dusk and Crucible circled the three of them like gigantic vultures, as Specter struggled to stay in the air.

A rush of heat. Wind whipping past her, Weiss' startled yelp. An agonized shriek Yang felt right down to her bones. Fang struggling, his tail caught in Dusk's jaws, Crucible looming over him.

Then a flurry of movement that Yang couldn't follow. Pepper was there, and then there was a splash, and she wasn't. The next thing she knew, Nymph roared and Specter dipped low over the lake beneath them. Yang couldn't help it—she let out a shriek that turned into a stream of curses, flailing her legs frantically and spraying droplets everywhere.

In her defense, Specter had just dipped her feet in ice water.

"Would you shut up?" Weiss shouted. "You'll distract him!"

"I can't feel my toes!"

"Do you _want _him to drop you?"

Yang glanced down at the now very frozen lake. Inkwell crashed into the layer of ice at full speed, leaving a sizable dent... but not a hole that she could crawl through. It was getting further away by the second. She continued to grumble—quietly, so that Specter wouldn't hear it over the wind.

Fang roared. He was almost directly underneath them now, and a glance to her left showed her that Pit had finally gotten away from the other pit dragons long enough to distract Kite. She had about half a second to feel Specter's claws slide out from under her arms, and an instant of free-fall. Then she was back in the saddle and swearing through gritted teeth.

Let it be known that falling onto dragonback _hurt. _Though not quite as much as it might have if it weren't for the saddle. Yang winced at the mental image and tucked her frozen feet against Fang's sides. Warmth leeched into them, and she stopped shivering. _Much better._

She looked around, now that she wasn't so preoccupied with hanging half-frozen from a dragon's claws. Her brow furrowed. She counted dragons and came up _very _short. Pearl and Glory had dropped back from the chase and were already dwindling on the horizon. Ao Guang, Nymph, and Pepper were all missing. So were Freya and Zircon, and their riders. Not to mention Ruby and Storm.

_This is a plan, _she told herself. _It has to be._

Yang really wished she knew whether it was their plan, or Cinder's.

* * *

Two jagged mountain ranges loomed in front of Nimbus. Two suns hung in the sky, and two sets of dragons flew with their wings pumping, desperate to outrace the pit dragons—and the fiery breath of twin Crucibles. He closed his misbehaving eye, and saw only one (very blurry) horizon.

With both Scarlet and Pyrrha on his back, his chest was heaving with the effort of keeping ahead of the pit dragons. _Most _of the pit dragons. Dusk went shrieking by overhead, her claws raking towards Huo. He rolled in midair to avoid them. When he righted himself, he was skimming just over the trees—still several hundred feet in front of Nimbus. He looked down and shouted, "Cave!"

Nimbus balked a little at the sudden shout. Pit, who was still cruising along with the aid of his powers, swerved closer to him. "Give Pyrrha to Twiggy!"

"What?" He glanced down. He could just make out a blurry green-and-brown blob that would probably look a bit more like Twiggy if he wasn't stressed and fleeing for his life. Not sure how else he was supposed to transfer Pyrrha, he flipped himself briefly upside-down—and since she wasn't strapped in, she slid right off his back. She let out a little yelp, grabbed for Scarlet's jacket, missed, and tumbled into Twiggy's waiting claws.

"Sssorry!" he called. Twiggy dropped like a stone the instant she grabbed Pyrrha. They vanished behind him. He tried to crane his neck to look, but all he saw were trees.

"Can you outfly Dusk?" Pit asked, still flying beside him.

Nimbus stared at him. "Well... um..."

"Try. If you can't, just come back around. We'll figure something else out."

He hesitated. Dusk was still dive-bombing Huo, who snapped at her in frustration. A blast of fire flew straight over her shoulders. Kite, meanwhile, had targeted Specter. She managed to rake her claws across one of his hind legs, making him screech like a teakettle.

Kite, as far as he knew, didn't have any physical problems at all—she'd been sent to the pits for behavioral problems. Dusk's shortened tail would make it harder to make sharp turns, but she was much bigger and stronger than he was. Dozens of painful crashes when he'd first learned to fly flashed before his eyes. He was good at flying, or at least he thought he was, but compared to them...

Scarlet's hand rested on his shoulder. He must have seen the muscles there tensing. Nimbus took a deep breath. He would trust his strengths, and he would trust his rider.

He spun in midair to collide with Kite just as she prepared to make another pass at Specter. The impact knocked her right out of the air, and she dropped several feet before she righted herself. He wheeled around, ready to defy all common sense by picking a fight with Dusk... and saw that she was already turning to face him.

Right. They were all being controlled by one person. Nimbus let out a little 'eep' and angled his wings into a steep dive. The two wind dragons, the only ones who had even a chance of catching him, both followed.

"Nimbus!" Scarlet's hands tightened on the reins. "Where are we going? The others are still—oh. _Oh, _that is _not _good!"

Dusk was gaining on them. She might not be as big as Crucible was, but her wingspan wasn't much smaller. Kite, meanwhile, started to fall behind. Nimbus slowed down, in case she—or whoever was behind all this—started getting ideas about going back to chasing his friends.

"Come on, sweetie," Scarlet urged him. "You can do this! Just a little faster!"

Nimbus flicked his ears. The encouragement was nice, even if Scarlet obviously had no idea what was going on. He let Dusk get very close, then tucked his wings and dropped. She flew straight over his head, banked hard, and stalled in midair. He swept between her outstretched claws and took the lead again. Kite pursued them both doggedly.

The second time Dusk 'caught' him, Nimbus' eye was acting up too badly for him to be totally sure where she was. He hesitated, his heart pounding, until he felt Scarlet's frantic tapping on his back. "Left! Bank left!"

He banked left. A cutting blast of wind he hadn't even seen Dusk aiming passed harmlessly under one of his outstretched wings. Scarlet squeaked. Nimbus sped up, and Kite started to fall behind again.

By Dusk's third attack, his heart rate started to go down, and the world came back into focus. Mostly. He flicked her nose with his tail, making her jerk her head to one side and go spiraling out of control. Kite actually passed her for a few seconds, before she could get her rhythm back. Scarlet let out a half-terrified, half-exhilarated whoop.

When he evaded her fourth attack with a tight barrel roll, Nimbus decided they were far enough away—and he stopped holding back. His head fully extended, the wind screaming in his ears, he darted through the air and caught a thermal straight up. Dusk tried to follow. She got close to catching him one last time, only for her teeth to snap shut on thin air when he turned on a dime. An instant later, she smashed into a tall pine tree and went down into the forest, thrashing the whole way. Kite dwindled into the distance.

"Oh gods." Scarlet's forehead came to rest against the back of his neck. "That was... too close."

Nimbus rumbled in amusement. It hadn't been, but he supposed that if his _rider _had bought it... maybe more of the pit dragons would fall for the same trick. He just had to loop back around and draw off a few more.

"We have to find the others," Scarlet said. "Northwest, I think."

They flew northwest. Then north. Then west, and southeast, and high into the air where they could survey the surrounding forest. There was no sign of the ongoing chase.

Oops.

* * *

The world lurched and spun. Pyrrha didn't even have time to panic before Twiggy snatched her out of the air, putting her pinwheeling fall to a stop almost as soon as it had started—and promptly dropped out of the sky.

Jaune's panicked shouting, the wind screaming past them as they plummeted, distant howls and roars from the pit dragons... Pyrrha squeezed her eyes shut. She was pressed against Twiggy's chest. She could feel her heartbeat.

Everything went dark. Her eyes snapped open—they hadn't hit the ground. Or rather, they'd gone _past_ ground level. Rough stone rushed past them. Twiggy let go of her, and she landed in a mostly painless roll on the floor of a small cave.

Or rather, a small cave _entrance._ There were other openings near the back, ones that went even deeper. Before Pyrrha could move, Twiggy grabbed her by the back of her shirt and deposited her near the larger of the two. Jaune soon followed, once she'd nudged him into unstrapping his legs.

A heavy thump shook dust from the ceiling. Twiggy nudged the two humans further into the cave, glancing nervously over her shoulder. They moved in further, past a few twists and turns, into pitch darkness. Pyrrha reached out, found Jaune groping for her hand at the same time, and clasped them together. Her free hand she let slide along the wall to her left.

Footsteps in the cave behind them. Their gait was strange—Pyrrha suspected it might be the three-legged Tumbleweed. She swallowed hard and forged on, taking care to be as quiet as possible.

A whimper behind them. Pyrrha whirled around, briefly letting go of Jaune so that they could both check on Twiggy. She was nearly stuck, but with a little groping around in the dark they eventually got one of her hind legs through the gap. The other followed. Soon afterwards, she whimpered again. This time the cave had narrowed too much for her to fit her shoulders through.

The three of them waited there, in pitch darkness, listening to the three-legged shuffling coming closer and closer until the footsteps suddenly stopped. A snort. Rocks ground against one another. The foosteps inched closer. Stopped again. Snuffling, the scrape of claws on stone.

Pyrrha swept her hand from side to side until it brushed against Jaune's shoulder. She gripped it tightly. His head bumped against her arm.

Finally, Tumbleweed's steps faded away. There was a hefty thump. Then nothing.

* * *

Taiyang squinted in the bright sunshine as he and Qrow stepped off the airship. A dry breeze picked up, ruffling his hair and getting sand in his eyes. Everything he looked at blurred and wobbled in the heat. He grinned. It had been too long since he'd last been to Vacuo.

Qrow groaned and put a hand over his eyes. "We want the Albatross. It's a bar near the station, but not the fun kind. Lots of white trim." His face wrinkled in disgust. "Glad we're not buying anything. Only thing worse than cheap swill is expensive swill."

They stopped to wait for their dragons as they shuffled out of the ship's hold. Neither were fond of flying in airships, but speed was of the essence here. Tai cracked his knuckles and said, "Alright. Lead the way."

Eventually Qrow managed to open his eyes enough to actually see, though he still grumbled and shot irritated looks at the cloudless blue sky. He circled around streets lined with open market stalls and led them through a twisting labyrinth of alleyways. The neighborhood they ended up in was nice. Suspiciously nice. Tai had no idea why Qrow knew an area like this one so well, and he soon decided that he didn't _want _to know, either.

Winter was outside. Back straight, hands clasped behind her back. Steele stood by her shoulder. Both were as motionless as statues. The moment she spotted them, her eyes narrowed. "You're late."

Tai winced. He got the sense that she hadn't taken Qrow's advice to get some sleep before they got to Vacuo. Of course, he hadn't either, so he couldn't really judge.

"The ship ran into Grimm on the way," Qrow said.

Winter glowered at him, then apparently decided to let it go. "Communicators," she snapped, and handed two each to Qrow and Tai. "Radio signal, battery-operated."

"Nice." Tai tucked them in his pouch.

Qrow glanced at him and cringed. "I still can't believe you brought a fanny pack."

"It's practical."

"It's ridiculous."

Tai rested a hand on his belt. He imagined what Yang would say when she saw it, and smiled. "Yeah."

"Are you two done wasting time, or is there something _else_ we need to do before we move out?" Winter spoke through gritted teeth.

Qrow jerked his head northward. "Let's go."

Tai moved towards the saddle, but Qrow grabbed his arm. "Remember. We can't fly until we're out of the city."

"But—"

"The Vacuan flight squad watches their airspace," Winter explained. "If they see three unauthorized dragons flying over the city, just after a wide-scale attack on their academy no less, they will ask questions we don't want to answer."

"Or they might shoot first and ask never," added Qrow. Tai shot a last, longing look at the sky and nodded. It wouldn't be much of a rescue mission if half Vacuo's flight squad was chasing them.

So they mounted up, and their dragons alternated between a walk and a brisk trot. Tai made sure to stay in between Qrow and Winter. Probably a position he was going to get very familiar with over the next few days. He sighed. _Any backup is good backup,_ he told himself. _Even if together they're pains in my ass._

Hoping to keep the conversation on logistics, and away from an argument, Tai gestured to Quake. "Left saddlebag is full of food. I figured the kids will be hungry when we find them. Right has water, first aid kit, matches, all that good stuff. Salty's carrying all the camping gear, tents and sleeping bags mostly."

Winter eyed Qrow warily. "How very practical."

"There's a spare for you." Qrow gave her a friendly smile that Tai was immediately suspicious of. "In case you went haring off without stopping to pack."

"That won't be necessary," she snapped.

He raised his hands innocently. "Alright! I'm just offering."

"Qrow," Tai sighed, putting a hand to his forehead. "Don't needle her."

"I'm not needling!"

He turned to stare at his longtime friend. Qrow stared back, indignant. "Oh," he said, a bit startled. "Okay, uh..."

"What? I can't be helpful?"

Tai folded his arms and let the moment stretch. He was sure Qrow was remembering the same things he was—namely, the long and illustrious Branwen family tradition of pissing people off for sport.

"I don't need camping supplies." Winter was glaring daggers at both of them, now. "It will take more than just Steele and I to deal with these criminals, and that is _all._ If you aren't capable of taking this seriously then I will gladly make do without you."

Qrow bristled. "You think I'm not taking it _seriously?"_

"You never have before."

"Listen, Ice Queen—"

Winter jabbed a finger at him. "I don't care! I don't _care _what you think. As long as you stay focused, I don't care what you _do _either—but if you start messing around and get my sister hurt, I will _end you."_

Qrow sat very still in Salty's saddle. Seething. "I will _never _fuck around with these kids' lives on the line. If you knew a single goddamned thing about me, you'd know that."

Tai sensed his cue. "We're all here _because _we'd do anything to help them," he said. "And anything is gonna have to include dropping the arguments for a few days. You two can drive each other up the wall to your hearts' content after we're done, 'kay?"

They grumbled at him, but neither of them started anything. Winter seemed slightly chagrined by Qrow's outburst, and he was busy looking anywhere except her or Steele. Ah, yes, the other ancient Branwen tradition—in case of accidental emotional honesty, just pretend it didn't happen and hope it goes away.

Tai was calling it good. If nothing else, he'd managed to get them both to agree that he deserved a dirty look.


	60. Evasive Maneuvers

**Happy Friday everyone! This chapter is starring good plans, deeply questionable plans, and Mercury happening to someone who deserves it.**

* * *

**60\. Evasive Maneuvers**

* * *

Frost crept across the back of Weiss' hand. She winced, moving it away from Specter's scales and onto the saddle. His whole body radiated cold, and the wind whipping past them certainly didn't help... but it was definitely worth the discomfort.

A jet of fire blasted towards them. Specter dodged it, barely. The blast came so close that even through her dragon's powers, she felt a wash of blistering heat across her back. Her sleeve caught fire.

Weiss slapped at it, cursing furiously. Took a deep breath. This was _not _the time to panic. Besides, there had been no damage done to her, even if her jacket was now thoroughly ruined. When she glanced behind her, Crucible was closer than he'd been before. Worse, his aim was improving.

"Specter!"

He blew out a glittering cloud. Weiss hunched over his back so that she was protected from the worst of it. Crucible rolled sideways to avoid it, and dropped a few feet further behind.

Pit and Specter worked together to harry and slow the oncoming swarm of pit dragons. Weiss had tried to communicate with Blake and plan a coordinated attack, but it was just about impossible to talk to one another over the howling wind. Their dragons seemed to have things well in hand, though.

Specter produced another cloud of mist. This one missed Crucible entirely, he didn't even have to swerve, but it forced the earth dragon Tar to bank sharply to one side. Even then, she didn't quite avoid it, and white frost spread over the last few feet of her tail. She had already been falling behind. This proved to be the last straw, and she vanished from sight.

Soon after, Pit used his powers to push Tallow into Paprika's path. She bowled him over. Both started to fall. Paprika recovered above the treeline and continued to follow them. Tallow broke through the tops of the trees and got stuck. Weiss didn't see him free himself—he, too, disappeared into the distance.

Fang and Huo had their own roles to play. Whenever one of the pit dragons managed to get close enough to attack, the two of them would shoot fire and dive at them with their claws. Riptide was the latest pursuer to get past both mist and gravity attacks. She tried to latch onto Huo, but Fang flicked his tail across her face to force her to abandon the effort. Then Huo aimed a blast of fire at her. She flared her wings to avoid it, and dropped to the middle of the pack.

They might have been able to do more if they had more dragons—but everyone else had vanished during the chase. Weiss tried not to think too hard about that, because now was not the time to panic. Besides, their dragons obviously had _something _to do with it, considering how Specter had helped hide Storm.

Weiss rubbed at the back of her hand, thinking frantically. They were in a holding pattern of sorts, but not one that would last long. Huo and Fang couldn't deal with Crucible if he caught up to them—they could breathe fire on him all day, and he wouldn't care. She wasn't even sure they'd be able to handle the other veteran fighters, like Granite or Diver.

The stalemate wasn't in their favor, either. Pit was bound to start wearing down soon. Specter might not be far behind—he'd only recently learned to create mist like this, and she wasn't sure how long he could keep it up. They had to do _something._ If they could get Pit and Blake hidden...

But that strategy could only work for so long. If they were going to keep leading the pit dragons on a chase like this, there would always have to be at least one pair being chased. So far they'd been able to get free by causing distractions, but that meant they needed someone to do the distracting. Without Pit, they wouldn't have to worry about his powers running out, but they _would _have to worry about Crucible catching up with them.

No. They needed to chip away at the pit dragon's numbers, not their own. Weiss didn't like the idea of hurting them if she could help it, though, which made her reluctant to ask Specter to try hitting them with the mist. Dragons were more resilient than humans, but...

Weiss snarled in frustration. There were too many questions without answers, here. She didn't know how long Specter could keep making mist, she didn't know how harmful it would be for other dragons, she didn't know _anything _about these repugnant devices—the three extra years of education she _would_ have had once she'd graduated were making their absence felt.

She kept clinging to the saddle, her neck cramping from looking over her shoulder, shouting instructions to Specter when she spotted an opportunity. And, as she groped for a plan and came up with nothing that wouldn't involve putting one of her friends in an unacceptable amount of danger, she kept reminding herself—now was not the time to panic.

* * *

"There's more to the plan, right?" Specter said, ducking past another fireball. "Right? Pit?"

"I'm working on it!" He stopped holding himself up long enough to shove Granite towards the ground. She fought him, and just managed to stay above the treetops. His wing muscles started to tremble, and he returned his powers to himself.

"Could we go into the woods again?" Fang suggested. "That... sort of worked."

Huo snorted. "Only because we got lucky."

"Well we have to do _something!"_ Specter rolled in midair. Out of the corner of his eye, Pit saw Weiss' sleeve briefly catch fire until she slapped it out. "This _hurts, _you know."

Pit really wished they would stop talking. He was out of breath, but he said, "If we go in the woods, we'll get surrounded."

They flew on. A few dragons got too close, and Pit and Specter did their best to slow them with their powers without hurting them. Sometimes, when that didn't work, Huo and Fang would push them away—fire was good at driving most of them back, but it was a lot harder to use without causing any serious injuries. Some of them were fast, and kept catching up with them over and over. Crucible wasn't, not really—he closed the distance slowly, but it was almost impossible to stall him. Once he got within biting distance...

He remembered Pepper falling.

"What if we split up?" asked Huo. "Like we've been doing. They'd have to do the same thing to get all of us."

"Crucible will chase someone," Pit said. "It's impossible to get around him when he spits fire so far."

"So somebody needs to deal with him."

"What do you mean, deal with him?"

Fang's flight pattern stuttered briefly. "Well," he said nervously. "I might have an idea."

He explained. Pit and Specter balked.

"Fang, no."

"Do you have a better idea?" Huo demanded. "'Cause two-on-one odds sound a lot better than anything else we've come up with."

"You're not going to _fight _him, are you?" Specter's voice turned unusually shrill.

"No! What am I, crazy? We'll run away." Fang flicked his tail. "It'll, uh... it'll be hard for him to see once we start."

"But your riders—"

Huo tossed his head indignantly. "We're not _dumb._ It's not like flying until we drop is less dangerous."

Pit hesitated. He knew who Huo meant by _we_—he'd be the one who exhausted himself first. He owed it to his friends to at least try to get them out of danger before that happened.

...Though he wasn't sure this counted as being _out _of danger.

"Be careful!" he shouted, fixing Fang with an evil stare. "Because if you don't I'll—"

"Yeah, yeah." Fang dipped a wing to sidle closer to Huo. "Ready?"

"After you, sunshine!"

Together, they dove. Pit craned his neck to look. Crucible kept his crimson eyes fixed on Specter's tail. Paprika, Granite, Brick, and Riptide all peeled away from the chase to follow the two fire dragons.

They crashed through the treetops. Paprika led the pit dragons in a V formation, her wings spread wide. Before any of them could get close, fire bloomed. Most of the dragons following veered away, returning to following Pit and Specter.

Paprika didn't. Pit stalled in midair, his heart dropping into his stomach. _They don't know—!_

She dipped under the trees. Seconds later, there was an ear-piercing screech as she erupted back into the sky. She thrashed in midair, roaring, smoke billowing around her, until her tail was extinguished. Then she went silent. Corrected her course. Flew on, silently, as if nothing had happened.

Crucible wheeled around. The fire was already spreading, the air a haze of smoke. He dropped into the heart of the inferno and vanished.

Pit noticed for the first time that Blake was gripping the reins like her life depended on it. He rumbled deep in his chest to try and soothe her. She patted his shoulder in thanks.

He tried his best to put Fang and Huo out of his mind, for now. They would get away, and then meet up with everyone later while Crucible stayed lost in the woods, hopefully until they could get rid of the mind control devices. For now, he had to worry about Blake, Weiss, and Specter.

His wing muscles ached.

* * *

"This is a plan, right?" Blake called out. Pit flicked his ear. "One flick for yes, two for no." One flick.

A plan that involved Yang and Sun diving into a flaming forest with Crucible. Great. Blake took a deep, steadying breath. She had to trust that they knew what they were doing. Especially since there were still six pit dragons following them.

"Okay. What's next?"

Pit turned his head just enough for her to see one wide yellow eye, and gave her a sheepish look.

"This is as far as you got?"

One flick.

Blake chewed her lip. A glance over her shoulder showed her that Diver was getting dangerously close. The pit dragons had fanned out, and Inkwell was almost level with them, though she was flying almost a hundred yards to their left.

_They're trying to surround us._

She grinned. They hadn't been able to do anything about that with Crucible blasting anything that got too close to him... but he wasn't here anymore.

"One-eighty degree flip," she shouted, as quietly as she could while still conveying the message to Pit. "Think you can pull it off?"

His freckles, which had been glowing continuously for a while now, brightened. Blake had enough warning to grab the saddle and hold on tight while the world spun sickeningly over her head. Weiss did not—she let out a yelp that carried clearly in the sudden absence of roaring wind. Startled pit dragons whipped past them on either side as Pit and Specter flapped frantically to build up speed.

By the time their pursuers had turned themselves around, they were already dwindling into specks—but they weren't about to get any further behind. Not without Pit in range to mess with them. Weiss apparently had the same thought. She waved with one hand and jabbed a finger at the trees below.

They dove. Blake held a hand over her face as branches whipped past her. Pit hit the ground in a dead sprint, breathing hard. "We need to hide somewhere," Blake called out.

"What about there?" Weiss gestured towards a section of thick undergrowth. Blake glanced up at the hole the dragons had torn in the canopy and shook her head.

"No, they'll be able to find where we came down and sniff us out that way. We need some water, like a stream or—"

Specter picked his head up and sniffed. He whistled and turned sharply to his left, with Pit following. Seconds later, Blake smelled what he had. She really, _really _shouldn't complain...

"Ugh." Weiss put a hand over her face. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss Raven's camp."

It wasn't a stream. More of a valley between two large hills, one that dipped well below sea level. Shallow, filthy water covered the ground—which meant thick mud, swarming insects, and the kind of smell that _thoroughly _masked their own.

They picked their way farther in, where trees grew thickly from the water and they wouldn't be immediately visible from the edge. Pit and Specter were careful to step in deep enough water that they wouldn't leave obvious footprints, though Specter fretted at the muck that soon caked his legs.

The swampy area opened up once they passed between the mountains. They went left, circled around a low ridge, and finally passed onto slightly drier ground. Pit sagged in relief, and almost fell onto his belly. "Just a little longer," Blake promised. "Then you can rest."

"Mmm-kay..."

* * *

_"WHAT?!"_

Hands slammed down on the desk in front of the computer terminal, rattling a coffee mug and a package of clean syringes. Watts stared at the screen in disbelief. He clicked from monitor to monitor, revealing nothing but empty forest.

The last two dragons had vanished. And they were only the latest in a series of improbable escapes, where the pack of a dozen had somehow whittled down to nothing.

He pulled up the blueprint for his devices. The programming was, despite his best efforts, still something of a sprawling mess... but he easily found the sections that enabled semi-autonomous combat. This part of the design was noticeably neater than other pieces of code—mostly because Watts had built it up nearly from scratch.

It was, in his esteemed opinion, _ingenious._ There had been code in the original device intended to provide suggestions and allow for the use of more advanced combat techniques. From those simple stepping stones he had created code that let his devices use a dragon's instincts and muscle memory, _and _incorporated a simple AI for tactics and basic strategy. Without it, one person couldn't hope to control so many of the creatures at once—and all their fighting experience in the pits would have been wasted.

So how the _hell _had a dozen dragons disappeared from right under his nose? Was there some kind of bug in the system?

He rewatched the video. They'd been_ talking to one another._ Somehow, without any sort of radios or other technology, they'd managed to execute dozens of improvised plans while midflight. It wasn't _possible—_humans couldn't converse like that in midair! They'd be lucky if they could scream a few words at one another, let alone _this._

"Yo."

He froze, his shoulders rigid. Slowly, he turned his head. Mercury stood in the doorway of his lab. A twitch started in his left eye.

"You okay there, buddy?" The young man smirked.

Watts let out a wordless snarl and hurled his mug, still half-full, at Mercury's head. He ducked, laughing as it shattered against the wall.

"She's gonna skin you alive."

The boy flipped him off and slipped out of the doorway.

Watts glared at his monitor. If it had come to a fight... but it hadn't.

He grimaced. Things weren't _entirely _unsalvageable. There were a few dragons he hadn't lost track of, with whom it would be more a matter of forcing them out of their hiding places than anything else. While those inconveniences were dealt with, he could start combing the woods.

But as irritating as he was... Mercury wasn't wrong. Cinder already hated him. She'd take this as a failure even if he did manage to hunt them all down. And if just _one _of the students escaped, she was finished.

It was time to enact his backup plan.

* * *

The streets of Vacuo teemed with life, even late at night—particularly those neighborhoods that had once been home to fighting pits. Now the pits were long gone, most of them burnt-out or smashed to rubble, but the areas around them were still the place to go if you didn't want anyone to pay too much attention to you.

A small figure pulled a beanie further down over her face, her shoulders hunched nervously, carrying a bag of groceries over one shoulder. She turned just as a man in a purple suit passed by her. At the sight of him she jumped and cringed back into an alley, only relaxing when he kept walking without so much as a second glance.

But of course May was jumpy—she hadn't been sleeping much, lately.

Her teammates were gone. Nolan was in Vale, after agreeing to answer a few questions from the Council and transfer to the new and 'improved' Beacon. Brawnz could be anywhere for all she knew, but he'd joined the rogues. Cinder.

It wasn't like she was surprised. Maybe, if things were different, she and Roy would have gone with Brawnz. Maybe... But she'd shot Ozpin, and the man in the violet cloak had tried to kill her, and the Council had killed Roy.

She adjusted her beanie again, a nervous habit she'd picked up while in hiding. There wasn't technically a warrant out for her address... but she knew they were looking for her. A student of Shade that disappeared after the attack? She wasn't one of _the _rogues, but she was definitely _a _rogue. If the wrong camera picked up her face...

_Stop it._ May turned a corner and relaxed slightly. She was home, or as close as she got these days. A small, condemned factory. Abandoned, not-quite-waterproof... but empty, and with a back room big enough to hide Flurry. She circled around to the back entrance, easing it open so that the rusted hinges didn't squeal too loudly.

It was silent inside.

"Flurry?"

May frowned. She'd scolded him the other day for barking when she got in—but she hadn't meant for him to think he couldn't do it at all. Just... not so loud.

She took another few steps inside the door, tossed the bag of food onto the floor—and searing light filled the room. May cried out and dove for her rifle. Her fingers scrabbled at the metal bars she'd hidden it under. Then several pairs of arms grabbed her and hauled her away. She hung from their grip, trembling, as one of the intruders stepped forward.

Black armor. Opaque visor. And Vacuo's crest painted over the chest. Soldiers.

"Flurry!"

Not a sound from the other room. May's struggling redoubled, and she kicked one of the soldiers holding her in the shin. The one who stood in front of her held up his hands.

"Your dragon is perfectly fine, May Zedong. We've simply sedated him to avoid an... incident."

"I didn't—"

"I'm sure you _also _wish to avoid an incident."

May stiffened, her eyes flicking to the long rifle slung over his back.

"Your hands, please." He drew a pair of plastic cuffs from his belt.

She swallowed and offered her wrists.

It was all very efficient. Flurry was loaded onto an airship, while May sat in the cabin between two of the soldiers. Panic overwhelmed everything, jumbling her thoughts as she wondered what would happen to her partner. Scenarios rushed past her mind's eye, each worse than the last—he was alone in a dark room, wondering where she was. They'd seen his wings and sent him to the fighting pits. They'd culled him for being the dragon of a rogue, he was gone and she had _no one—_

But when they led her to her cell, there he was. Curled up in the back with one wing over his face. Snoring softly. May curled up next to him until they came for her.

Next was a small room that looked more like an office than an interrogation room. The woman behind the desk was obviously one of the council's. She watched May impassively for several horribly long moments. Then, still expressionless, she retrieved a small plastic bag from behind her desk and placed it in front of her. Inside was a single spent casing.

"This is from your rifle," the woman said. "It was found just outside Beacon's campus. You were absent from Shade at the time of the attack on Beacon. Care to explain?"

May opened her mouth, but all that came out was a croak. She swallowed, dropping her gaze down to the backs of her hands. "No," she mumbled. "It was me."

"That's a good start." A flick of the woman's hand started a recorder. "Please. Continue."


	61. Gone to Ground

**Hi folks! I'm back with another chapter, this time starring a broken nose, the proper way to evade a charge, and Specter being a prima donna.**

* * *

**61\. Gone to Ground**

* * *

Pitch darkness.

"Uh... Twiggy?"

Twiggy barked. Jaune reached for where he thought her head was... and found Pyrrha's hair instead. "Sorry!"

"It's alright."

"So, do either of you remember the way out?"

"Nnno..."

"It was over... here?"

Jaune followed Pyrrha's voice and smacked his head on stone. "Okay, that's enough of that." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his scroll. A little fiddling brought up the flashlight setting.

There was only one dragon-sized opening. It yawned wide and dark, and there were several large spiders crawling on the walls. "Great..."

"Shall we?" Pyrrha asked, stepping to the edge of the light cast by his scroll.

Jaune hesitated. "Um... do you think we've waited long enough? Like, is he gone?"

"There's only one way to find out." Pyrrha glanced into the dark. "And I'm not sure he'll leave on his own. In the worst case scenario, more dragons might join him to help him keep watch."

"Yep. Great. _Super _awesome."

"I'm sorry."

"No!" Jaune squeezed her shoulder. "No, don't be. I'm just freaking out a little, it's not your fault."

Twiggy rumbled nervously. He mustered up a grin. "What do you think, girl? Ready to go pick a fight with Tumbleweed?"

"Nno!"

"Yeah, well, me neither. It'll be okay. We'll just run past him, and... figure something out. Maybe lose him in the woods."

They turned off the flashlight once they reached the end of the tunnel. It turned out to be a wasted effort—Tumbleweed sat on his haunches in the larger cave entrance, which was still catching the last of the fading sunlight. He watched them impassively as Twiggy squirmed through the tighter places. Then, abruptly, the tighter spaces ended. Shattered stone lay scattered across the cave floor. Long gouge marks covered the walls.

Tumbleweed got to his feet.

"Hey there," Jaune said, with strained cheer. "You, uh... you wouldn't let us go if I gave you a big 'you're still in there' speech, would you?"

The old earth dragon broke into a trot. He was _fast—_he'd long since learned a strange, loping gait that let him travel quickly on only three legs. Twiggy squeaked and bolted left, while Pyrrha grabbed Jaune's hand and yanked him to the right.

In one instant he was running, and he could feel the warmth of Pyrrha's fingers. In the next, he lay on his back with his ears ringing. Pyrrha was across the room, reaching out for him, her eyes wide. Jaune coughed. His back hurt. So did his head.

Twiggy roared and charged the much bigger dragon. Tumbleweed—mild, gentle Tumbleweed who played with the younger dragons and even let Pyrrha ride him once—aimed a vicious bite at her throat.

Not that Twiggy was pulling any punches, either. With a horrible screech she buried her claws in his back and clawed at him, leaving a few deep gouges in his scales. He slammed her into the cave wall. Dirt and stones showered down around them. Jaune scrabbled in the dirt to get his hands under himself, but the second he moved the ground started rocking like a boat. And Jaune... really wasn't great with boats.

Thick muscles rippled along Tumbleweed's back legs and tail, and his forepaw and stump came down on Twiggy with enough force to shake the cave. She yelped and twisted, but he'd gotten his claws into her side and was using his weight to push her to the ground. His mouth opened—

A rock bounced off his nose.

Pyrrha tossed another from hand to hand, balancing lightly on the balls of her feet. Tumbleweed's head turned. Twiggy twisted herself free, bleeding from several long scratches on her shoulders and sides, but otherwise unhurt.

He coiled himself up and pounced. Pyrrha rolled under his stump, coming up on her feet with her ponytail streaming behind her. In the same fluid motion she drew back and launched the second rock at his face. It nailed him right in the eye.

Tumbleweed reared back. His startled, pained roar was the first time he'd _acted _like a dragon—but he recovered heartbeats later and lunged at Pyrrha a second time. She slid under a swipe from his forepaw, leaped over his tail, and dodged out of the way of a full-body slam that carried him into the wall of the cave. He hit it squarely with his shoulder.

Another shower of rocks came down, one of them narrowly missing Jaune's hand. His eyes went wide. All at once the shocked paralysis fell away, and he hauled himself to his feet. Paused, breathing hard, as he struggled not to throw up. When he straightened, Twiggy stood poised to hurl herself back into the fight and protect Pyrrha.

Jaune caught her eye and made a few frantic hand motions that he hoped would get his idea across. He couldn't tell if it had worked—the moment he'd finished she launched herself onto Tumbleweed's back and batted at him with both paws. Jaune couldn't help noticing that she was being a lot less aggressive now that he was standing up.

He really hoped she wouldn't do anything too rash if he screwed this up...

"Hey!" he shouted. Then, following Pyrrha's example, he lobbed a rock at Tumbleweed. Missed. Turned a little bit red and tried again. This time it bounced off the earth dragon's shoulder. He didn't wince, but he _did _notice that Jaune wasn't on the ground anymore. He drove Pyrrha back with a swipe of his tail, then turned and barreled towards him.

He realized an instant too late that dodging a dragon was a _lot _harder than Pyrrha made it look. Jaune only had time to hurl himself out of the way before Tumbleweed crashed into the wall. His outstretched paw caught him in the back as he jumped, spun him around in midair, and sent him slamming face-first into the ground. There was a burst of pain in his nose, and everything went grey and fuzzy for a few seconds.

Twiggy jumped over him and knocked Tumbleweed back into the wall. Pyrrha hauled him upright by his shoulder, but when she made to release him he grabbed her arm and leaned close to her ear.

"Get him to hit the walls," he whispered.

She stared at him for a moment, understanding dawning on her face. Then she shoved him unceremoniously out of the cave. He yelped, tripped over a branch, and almost landed on his face _again, _but managed to catch himself on his elbows instead.

He rolled over just in time to see Pyrrha baiting the towering earth dragon like a matador. Tumbleweed charged her at a lurching gallop. She rolled between his legs. He hit the wall just inside the cave entrance and, at the same time, Twiggy slammed into almost the same place. Her powers shook the ground.

Tumbleweed, sensing what was about to happen, tried to back away—but he was still reeling from hitting the wall, and Twiggy swept her tail under one of his back feet as she darted past him. He slipped. Twiggy grabbed the back of Pyrrha's shirt in her mouth, and the two of them slipped free of the cave just as it gave up and collapsed.

In the instant of stillness that followed, Jaune's stomach tied itself into a hot, sickly knot. Then there was an indignant roar from inside, muffled by all the rocks in the way, and a tremor sent a few pebbles skittering down the newly-made slope.

"We should probably—" he started to say. Twiggy seized him by his hood and yanked him up into the saddle in front of Pyrrha. He tried to laugh and stopped when it hurt too much. He ran a hand along his dragon's side, where a few cuts were still bleeding.

"You okay, girl?"

"Gud," Twiggy said, without breaking from her sprint. Jaune frowned and leaned over to examine the scratches more closely. They were long, but not very deep—his shoulders slumped in relief.

Once he was done checking on Twiggy, Pyrrha threw her arms around his neck and said, "That is _not _how you evade a charge."

"Yeah... I kinda figured that out." His voice came out thick and nasal. Gingerly, he prodded his nose and winced. His favorite sweatshirt was shredded in places, and bloody in others.

Pyrrha took his chin gently in her hand and tilted his face towards hers. "I think you broke your nose."

"Feels like it."

"Here." She pushed his head down so that he was looking at her lap. Jaune gave her a thumbs-up—then squeaked when she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"Remind me to do that properly later," she said, with a little smirk. "As soon as your nose isn't bleeding."

* * *

"Specter. Hold still."

Weiss folded her arms and raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her dragon. He whined pathetically and gave her a look of sheer, heart-wrenching betrayal. She threw her head back and groaned in exasperation. "Don't give me that! It's only mud, you're half covered in it already!"

A small noise drew her attention to Blake, who stood a few feet away. "I'm sorry," Weiss snapped, "did you just _snicker? _Because this was your idea in the first place."

"No!" Blake coughed into her hand. "No. Do you... want help?"

"Yes."

It was only fair, really, since this whole situation was her fault in the first place. Starting with an admittedly excellent suggestion that they should lay low until after the sun set—Pit was exhausted, there were enemy dragons patrolling the skies, and with Blake's night vision they could give their partners time to rest _and _have a better chance at avoiding detection.

Of course, that had led to the two of them sitting in a muddy, foul-smelling patch of forest, with nothing to do except wait and stew on their situation. Blake oh-so-innocently pointed out that Specter's pale blue scales might stick out too much in the dark. They might as well use the down time to camouflage him.

"No!" Specter scrabbled backwards as Blake approached him with a handful of mud. Weiss put her hands on her hips and watched, the corner of her mouth twitching upward in amusement.

"You could help too," Blake suggested. She lunged, smearing Specter's shoulder. He hissed at her and ruffled his wings indignantly.

"Specter." Weiss glared at him until he lowered his head in apology. "This will help avoid another chase. I promise we'll wash it all off as soon as we're out of danger."

"Ice," he whined.

She waited.

Defeated, he lowered his head and let them cover his scales.

The sun was just touching the tops of the mountains when they finished. A grumpy Specter then insisted that they do the same to Pit... only for him to toss his tail dismissively and roll around in the mud of his own accord. It didn't make much of a difference—his scales already blended into the trees.

"There," Weiss said, patting Specter's nose. "That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

Specter's head rolled to the side, his ears and tail drooping as he let out a haunted moan. Weiss scoffed. "Oh, don't be such a drama king."

"You know..." She jumped—Blake had spoken from right behind her. "Your jacket isn't very camouflaged either."

"What—no!"

Too late. Weiss made a noise she would later deny sounded anything like a squeak and ducked out of the way. Blake's first attack missed her by a hair. She danced backwards, her arms up in a defensive position.

"Blake Belladonna, don't you _dare!"_

Her only answer was an evil smirk. Weiss slid in the mud and had to windmill her arms to stay upright. Blake advanced on her. She looked to Specter for help, but he and Pit just watched them with bemused expressions on their faces. And, in Specter's case, maybe a little bit of schadenfreude.

_Traitor._

"Let's talk about this!" Weiss backed up even further. "We can—"

She lunged. Weiss tried to jump out of the way, but her foot slipped again. Blake's hand shot out to catch her, but she'd been expecting Weiss to be farther away, and—her stomach lurched. There was an arm wound tightly around her waist, and hair tickling the back of her neck, and she didn't dare look back because she knew exactly what she would see if she did.

That _smirk._

She'd been seeing it a lot lately, and there was no getting around the little jolt that came with it. Not when they'd spent so much time together under Specter's wings, which just so happened to cast a rosy glow on everything underneath them when the light hit them in just the right way—which it seemed to do distressingly often. So Weiss stood frozen, knowing that if she moved she would do something incredibly impulsive, and trying not to wonder if that was why Blake wasn't moving either.

After several long seconds, Blake came to her senses. She jumped back and tucked the offending hand under her other arm. "I'm so sorry—I didn't mean to do that."

Weiss looked down. There was a handprint on her shirt. That didn't matter much, not when the ends of her sleeve were already charred anyway. Everything she was wearing had been a lost cause weeks ago. She opened her mouth to say as much to Blake and found that she couldn't quite string the words together.

There was a terrible silence, during which Blake's ears slowly rotated backwards until they lay flat against her hair. Weiss bent down and swept one finger along the ground. She paused. Reached out... and painted a streak across Blake's cheek.

Blake kept standing there, stock still, like she was waiting for an explosion. That was unacceptable. Weiss fumbled for the right words to tell her that she didn't mind, came up blank and, running on a form of logic that would be unfathomable to her in a few minutes... lunged.

She pulled away from the kiss with her mind, surprisingly, _clearer _than before. Clear enough to be absolutely mortified. Her head turned, with agonizing slowness, towards the dragons. Pit reared back, though he looked startled rather than upset. Specter tilted his head to one side and chirped.

Well. That was bullets one and two dodged. Reluctantly, she faced Blake. "Um... I apologize for—"

"There's no need." There it was—the smirk. "We should probably get moving..." She gestured at the sky, which had deepened to indigo without Weiss realizing it. "But if you want, I'd like to do that again. Later. When we aren't being chased."

"Yes. Good." Weiss floundered. Specter came to her rescue by strutting up to her and, with an exaggerated huff, indicating his saddle with his nose.

"Thank you," she murmured, patting his neck.

* * *

It was nearly sunset before Vacuo's northern forest started looking like real woods, rather than a collection of scrubby trees scattered across the dunes. The change happened so gradually that it was a bit of a shock to look down and see green instead of brown.

Winter took a deep breath. Glanced to her right, where Tai and Qrow flew on their own dragons. This wasn't the first time she'd been glad that it was so difficult to talk in the air, and she doubted it would be the last. If Qrow noticed how tense she was, she might have to kill him.

Even after years in the flight squad, dozens of missions, many of them far more dangerous than this one... she grimaced. Steele had been right. Weiss could handle herself, and she had Specter. All night. While Winter and the two idiots she'd brought with her landed and set up camp, because it was getting too dark to search any longer.

Was she already failing Weiss as badly as she'd failed Whitley?

Her grip tightened on the reins. Steele glanced back at her. Winter shook her head and hand-signaled that she was fine. The waiting couldn't be helped, and at least the pit dragons would be as hindered by the darkness as they were. Unless the White Fang was involved, which she couldn't entirely rule out. Because of course Weiss had somehow managed to make enemies with the council, the rebellion _against _the council, and bloodthirsty terrorists—all in less than a year.

If it was the White Fang... but she couldn't think about that. Not without thinking about the hole where her little brother had been.

Steele whistled to get her attention. Seconds later, she spotted what he had—a single speck against the darkening sky. Winter's heart leaped into her throat, then sank as she looked closer and saw that it was the smoky grey of a fire dragon.

They still weren't far enough to the north for this to be one of the students, and neither of the surviving fire dragons were grey. Winter's eyes narrowed as the speck drew nearer. A probable enemy, then. She ran a hand along Steele's spine, and felt him tense in response.

Winter had some pointed questions for this dragon's rider.

* * *

Somehow, in all the arguing she and Justice had done over leaving the White Fang, he'd never thought to ask where _else _they could go.

Ilia had assumed, mostly unconsciously, that she would find Blake and tell her she'd been right. But once they were in the air and she held the reins, she remembered that if she'd done her job right, Blake was _gone._ And if she wasn't, she was with Cinder.

So. Where to go. Ilia gripped the reins in a white-knuckled grip and angled Justice towards Vacuo. If nothing else, she was fairly sure she could find someplace to crash there. After that... well, the longer she could avoid thinking about _after that, _the better.

A distant dragon appeared on the horizon. Ilia tensed, squinting in an attempt to make out what color it was against the sun's glare. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her skin turned bright yellow to match her nerves. She told herself that it was fine. Harbinger couldn't fly with a rider yet. At worst it would be Brand, who she doubted would hurt her even if Hazel ordered him to.

The other dragon drew closer. It wasn't Brand—its was pale silver, not orange. There were two more specks behind it. Could these be some of the students? Ilia couldn't think of anyone else who'd have reason to be out here.

Closer still. The dragons were definitely too big to belong to students. They had changed direction slightly to head straight towards her and Justice. She could see white hair flapping behind the rider of the silver one.

_Is... is that Winter fucking Schnee?!_

It took everything Ilia had not to turn tail and fly like a Nevermore was chasing them. Instead she took deep breaths, soothing Justice when he picked up on her anxiety, and stayed the course.

As the three riders approached, the one in the middle, a blond man from what she could see, waved at her. Ilia waved back. The white-haired rider—_definitely _a Schnee, if she was riding an ice dragon—jabbed a finger towards the ground. They landed in a small clearing.

"Hey!" The blond man hopped off his earth dragon and jogged over to Justice. "Are you a Beacon student?"

Ilia's pulse kicked up another notch. "Sort of," she said, with a forced smile. "I studied there for a little while after the incident at Haven." She wracked her brain for some lie she could tell them that would explain why she was still between dragonries instead of studying at the new Beacon like a good little Council drone.

Fortunately the third rider, a man with dark greying hair and red eyes, spoke first. "I'm guessing if you're out here on your own, you're not exactly welcome back. We're not asking why—" he glanced at Justice, "—but we're looking for some of your old classmates."

"I'm sorry," she said, her eyes flicking towards the Schnee who still hadn't spoken. "I wasn't there long, I'm not sure—"

"You must have known some of them." A little suspicion had crept into his voice.

Panicked, Ilia blurted, "I had a friend—Blake."

The blond man's eyes lit up. "Then you must have met my daughters!"

"Tai—" the red-eyed man started to say, but the blond man—Tai—bulled right over him.

"Yang, my oldest, she's pretty hard to miss—tall, blonde, her fire dragon's got almost as much attitude as she does. And my youngest—"

"Ruby," Ilia guessed. She'd memorized the names of Blake's teammates. "Yeah, uh... I saw them around. But they were mostly friends of a friend, I don't know where they went."

"You sure?" The red-eyed man stepped up. "My nieces told us they were in this area. We're not here to hurt them, if that's what you're worried about."

Nieces. Daughters. Ilia swallowed hard and glanced at the Schnee again. So _that _was why Winter Schnee was out here in the middle of nowhere—she was looking for the younger one. The younger one... who was probably still with Blake.

_Fuck._

Ilia didn't have to fake reluctance. "I was hoping to find Blake, but... I don't know any more than you do about where they are. Just that they're near this forest."

"Would you like to come with us?" Tai smiled at her, all innocence. "I'd rather not put leaving a teenager out here alone on my conscience."

The red-eyed man put a hand to his forehead. _"Tai."_

"What? We're obviously heading in the same direction."

Winter Schnee shot Ilia a suspicious glare. "Indeed," she said, her eyes narrowed. "This way we can keep an eye out for one another."

"Um..." Justice turned his head to stare at Ilia, pleading with his eyes for her to say no. "Yes. Thank you."

His ears went back, as if to say, _What are you doing?_

"I don't know!" she whispered into his ear as she remounted. "What else was I supposed to tell them?"

Besides, if Blake _was _still hanging around the Schnee... she couldn't let Winter find them first.


	62. Everything is on Fire

**Hello, and happy Friday! This chapter... well... the title sort of says it all tbh.**

* * *

**62\. Everything is on Fire**

* * *

Smoke choked the air. All around was the roar of flames, punctuated by falling trees and the pained wail of some distant animal. And through the ash and flying embers that blotted out everything more than ten feet away, a pair of eyes glowed like two open furnaces.

Sun must have been a real bastard in a past life.

"Left!" he wailed, clinging to Huo's neck and squinting through the haze. His dragon's wings were pulled all the way back, forming two walls over his head and shielding him from the worst of the heat—otherwise he'd probably have cooked already.

Yang and Fang were just close enough for him to see them, sprinting ahead of him and Huo. A tree came down right in front of Crucible, and for an instant he was lost in the smoke. Sun leaned forward, eyes straining for any sign of forest that wasn't on fire—_there!_

They broke through into open air. A cool, clean breeze ruffled Sun's hair, and it was hands-down the best thing he'd ever felt in his life. He breathed in...

A flaming wave rolled over them. Sun yelped and ducked down against Huo's neck, which shielded him from some of the worst of it. His pant legs caught fire anyway. Swearing at the top of his lungs, he kicked and thrashed and slapped at them until they were out—and suddenly found himself staring down the pyromaniac himself.

Crucible's nostril's flared. Sun felt about a year of his life leave him in one panicked exhale. Teeth fastened themselves in the fabric of his shirt. He had just enough time to realize that they were Huo's, and hope that he might live about half a second longer, before he was airborne.

Upside-down, about fifteen feet in the air, he had an instant's snapshot of Yang vaulting off of Fang's back. Things were so blurry from the smoke that he didn't realize there was a pond there until he hit the water face-first. By the time he surfaced, coughing and spluttering, Yang was treading water next to him.

"What now?"

Yang shrugged. "Not sure. It was Fang's idea."

More flames rolled overhead. Sun dove underwater, his hands scrabbling in the mud near the bottom. He found a gnarled root and held on as long as he could before he had to surface. The air wasn't all that much nicer to breathe than the water. He gagged on smoke, then accidentally dropped too low in the water and inhaled a mouthful.

Yang gripped his arm and helped him stay above the surface while he coughed. Her eyes narrowed as she stared into the woods, where nothing could be seen except an indistinct grey haze. The smoke turned a cherry red, backlit by blasts of fire some distance away. "Son of a—they're not _fighting _that thing, are they?!"

Sun opened his mouth to say no, of _course _not—then hesitated. Huo wouldn't pull something like that, surely. He knew Crucible was a fully grown dragon raised in the fighting pits. They _all _knew that the only thing they could do was run. Which they'd been doing, unsuccessfully, for a while now. And with Sun and Yang relatively safe in the pond...

"Fuck!" he blurted, and struck out for solid ground.

* * *

"This is the _worst _idea any of us has ever had!" Fang bellowed.

"No _shit!"_ Huo and Fang were neck and neck, bolting at top speed over burning brush as sparks rained down around them. Crucible was close enough to snap at their tails. Their riders were safe, though—as safe as any squishy human could be in a forest fire, anyway. Even if this didn't work, they'd done everything they could.

Huo shook the thought away. Instead he forced himself to think about how annoying it would be to find them again once this was all over. Which it would be. Soon.

"We've gotta turn around!" Teeth snapped shut inches from his tail. His heart juddered frantically in his chest.

Fang shot him an incredulous look. "Are you _serious?!"_

"I'd rather not lose my tail before the fight even _starts, _you know!"

"...I hate this forest!" Fang tossed his head and, with a mighty roar, whirled around. Huo followed his lead, his claws digging into the ground. Together, they faced the much bigger dragon—for about half a second before everything went to hell.

Fire flared up right in Huo's face, making him squeeze his eyes shut instinctively to protect them. Claws raked across his face. Pain flared in his left ear. He reared back, but something slammed into his chest and knocked him onto his back. His eyes opened just as Crucible lunged for his throat.

Fang slammed into him from the side, rolling them both out of the way. Huo scrabbled to his feet and came up snarling. Crucible flared his wings—and all of a sudden he loomed as tall as the trees, taking up half the world as fire and smoke poured from his nostrils.

This was a mistake. Huo squawked in alarm, and he and Fang scrabbled backwards. Too late—Crucible's hindquarters coiled underneath him. They dived out of the way. Huo's belly hit the dirt. He tried to roll onto his side, but Fang slammed into him and he went careening into a stand of bushes.

He groaned and tried to blink the world back into focus. Two Crucibles grappled with a pair of blurry Fang's—and then there was only one Crucible, and his jaws sank into Fang's shoulder. An agonized howl brought Huo to his feet. He charged—then came to a screeching halt as their riders burst out of the haze of smoke.

"Get fucked!" Sun shouted, and hurled a rock at Crucible's head. It bounced off one of his horns. He turned towards them, wrenching Fang to one side. Yang's war cry was wordless. She drew her arm back and hurled a handful of mud directly into the pit dragon's eyes.

Crucible reared up. He released Fang, his jaws opening wide and glowing bright orange. They moved to dodge—not fast enough.

Huo threw himself at Crucible's head, digging his claws into the underside of his jaw and forcing it shut. The head whipped to one side. For an instant he was weightless, and his claws started to slip. Fang grabbed one of Crucible's horns and tried to force his head towards the ground.

He raked his forepaw down Huo's back. It felt like lines of fire across his scales—and he knew they couldn't win this. Crucible had been fighting since he was younger than they were, he outweighed both of them put together, he was monstrously strong...

But they weren't fighting _Crucible._ They were fighting the human doctor.

Huo let himself hang from Crucible's forehead as the pit dragon struggled, gritting his teeth as those claws tore more furrows into his side. The device was right in front of him, fixed between his horns.

_If this doesn't work,_ he thought, _I'm going to kill Sun for being dumb enough to follow us._

He felt bubbling in his guts. This _stupid human _hurt Fang. Just like he hurt Storm and Specter, and just like he wanted to hurt Sun. The bubbling became a hot, sickly churning. Fixing a poisonous glare on the shiny metal plate, he narrowed his eyes and roared, "Survive this!"

Plasma burned its way down Huo's throat. It hit the metal plate dead on, and a gout of _disgusting _black smoke billowed up in his face. It smelled like a tire fire mixed with burning plastic—the stench of sweet victory. Molten slag dripped down Crucible's snout, landing in hissing puddles at his feet.

Crucible froze. Slowly, he tilted his head to one side and looked at Huo. His eyes crossed.

Huo tossed his head and said, "You're welcome."

This was the wrong thing to say. Crucible tossed his head viciously to one side and Huo, not expecting to be thrown like that, went pinwheeling through the air. He hit the ground on his side, rolled onto his stomach, and lay there for a moment, thoroughly disoriented.

_"No!"_ the pit dragon bellowed. _"No more! NO!"_

Huo curled into a ball, his good ear flat against his skull. Crucible shoved him into the dirt and, with a parting bite to the back of his neck that thankfully didn't do much more than break skin, he was off. He sprinted full-tilt in a seemingly random direction, shouldering trees aside whenever they got in his way, and leaving a swathe of destruction in his wake.

"Huo!"

He groaned and lay his head in the dirt. Sun crouched beside him, gingerly poking at the bite and the scratches on his face, back, and sides. "Shit, dude," his rider said breathlessly. "I should be mad—and I'm _gonna _be mad in a minute—but damn. That was _epic."_

Huo flicked his good ear. Sun hadn't done too badly himself. His eyes drooped halfway closed, but he mustered just enough energy to look sideways at Fang. His rider was fussing over him, too. No injuries besides the shoulder—though it looked nasty.

Satisfied that no one had died, Huo shut his eyes and lay his head down on his paws. As far as he was concerned, that had gone way better than they'd planned.

* * *

"I'm not saying we should turn _around," _the red-eyed man—who Ilia had since learned was named Qrow—snapped. "I'm saying we should start covering more ground. They might be close."

"This is _still _part of Vacuo," Winter shot back. "And coverage might be very spotty, but it's not _gone._ There's no point wasting time on a search pattern."

"Maybe your fancy military tech's still got some coverage, but mine's been dead for half an hour. They're _kids, _not a bunch of your tin birds."

"I don't know how it's done in _Beacon," _Winter sneered, "but in Atlas we were assigned military grade technology."

"Okay!" Tai _finally _cut through the argument. "Let's give it another few minutes before we spread out."

Ilia pressed her fingers to throbbing temples.

They started to fly in what was apparently an advanced search pattern but _looked _like a back-and-forth squiggle. Qrow pestered Winter. Flat, scrubby forest turned to rugged mountain foothills furred with pine trees. Winter sniped at Qrow. True mountains speared up into the sky. Ilia wondered how Tai had survived this long alone with the two of them.

Qrow opened his mouth. Ilia braced for another argument—but his expression had turned deadly serious. "Shit! I think I see 'em!"

"What?" Tai looked down.

"That way." Qrow pointed at the horizon. Ilia squinted until she spotted a slight gray haze between two mountains. As they grew closer, she recognized it for what it really was. A plume of smoke that billowed over a swathe of blackened forest. Fire still flickered at its edges, though it looked like it was starting to lose momentum.

Ilia dug her nails into her forearm, willing herself not to change color. _Please don't be Blake..._

They dove. Ilia caught Qrow and Winter each giving her wary looks, and tried her best to pretend she hadn't noticed. As they swept low over the field of ash and charred twigs, two dragons stood out against the dark background—along with two blond heads.

"'Ang!" bellowed Tai's earth dragon. One of the humans below them looked up. They were close enough now that Ilia could see her wave.

Tai and Qrow vaulted off their dragons before they'd even finished landing. Yang launched herself at them, slinging an arm around each of their necks and catching them both in a crushing hug. "You actually..." she trailed off, pulled away. Hugged her father again. "You came."

"'Course we did," Qrow said, grinning. "Can't let you rugrats have all the fun!"

Winter cleared her throat. "I only see two dragons," she said, her eyes flicking over the barren landscape.

The other blond walked over to them, this one a boy—a boy with a monkey tail. _One _human rider, then, and one faunus. He grinned sheepishly and rubbed a hand through filthy, ash-streaked hair. "Yeah, about that..."

Yang looked down. "We split up. They were chasing us, and we couldn't get away all together—and there's... Storm got hurt. She can't fly right now."

Tai swallowed. "So, Ruby..."

"She and Storm hid. I don't know where. I'm sorry, I—"

"Hey." Qrow slung an arm across her shoulders. "It's okay. We're gonna find them."

"I should've stayed where they were. I should've—"

Tai folded her into another hug. "Don't," he said, ruffling her hair—much to her obvious displeasure. "You did good."

* * *

Great, just what he wanted—more enemy dragons. Justice eyed the pair of them with mistrust, in case they made any aggressive moves towards Ilia. She hissed at him to, "Pretend to be friendly!" He huffed and ignored them both. That was as _friendly _as they were going to get.

Their riders talked among themselves as the adults planned their next move. It was getting late, and both the new dragons looked like they'd just been used as chew toys, so Winter called a halt.

Justice watched her from the corner of his eye as she settled cross-legged in front of Steele, discussing logistics with Qrow and Tai. She was a lot more normal-looking than he'd expected, though she did have the snow-white hair and ice-blue eyes. _They're frozen all the way through,_ Sienna had said. She didn't act very frozen—even now, she was snarling at Qrow for something he'd said.

His ear twitched. When he glanced to the side, he found one of the new fire dragons—he was pretty sure this red one was Fang—staring right at him.

"What?" Justice demanded, his hackles raising.

"Do you know her or something?" Fang asked, jabbing his tail in Winter's direction.

He huffed. "No."

This was apparently the wrong answer. Fang's eyes narrowed suspiciously, then flicked towards Ilia. "You weren't at Beacon."

"Not for long," Justice said, as if it was irrelevant. His tail twitched back and forth. Yang and Sun hadn't said anything... were there enough students at Beacon that they thought they'd just missed Ilia?

"Your rider knows Blake."

Justice nodded warily.

"So you know Pit."

"A little." Justice turned away from the other dragon's suspicious stare. "He's the—" He choked on the word hybrid, realizing just in time that they wouldn't tell just anyone about that. "The big earth dragon, right?"

"The big earth dragon? I thought you _knew _him."

"I only met him once," Justice grumbled. It had been very dark, and it was because of stupid Blake and the stupid Schnee and their dragons that he had to leave before he talked to Brand. He wasn't even sure what color Pit's scales were. "Ilia and Blake don't know each other _that _well."

A little growl slipped out as he said the name. Fang tilted his head to one side. "You don't like Blake much."

"No." Justice's ears went back. "It's annoying when she's around and Ilia stops making sense."

At that, Huo glanced over at them. "Ugh," he grumbled. "Who has a stupid crush _now?"_

"It's _not," _Justice snarled.

Fang's suspicion evaporated—now he looked like he was holding back laughter. "It's okay," he said, with an amused chuff. "They get like that for a while, but once they finally _do _something about it they get way less annoying."

"What would _you _know?" Huo demanded irritably.

"I hear things!"

"You don't know _anything," _Justice hissed. Blake was a traitor. Just because Ilia was running away too, didn't mean she'd forgiven her. Even if she wanted to find her. That was just... just for safety. But Blake had left Ilia alone—she wouldn't like her like that anymore.

Fang reared up, startled. "Whoa! What's your problem?"

Justice snapped at him. He backed up, his green eyes narrowing.

"Seriously?" Huo drawled. "Come on, quit it."

"Scared?" Justice taunted.

Fang snorted and rolled his eyes. "After the day we just had? Not really."

Justice pounced at him. All amusement evaporated as he tried to take a step back, leaned on one of his injuries, and went down hard on his side.

"Hey!" Yang and Sun both leaped to their feet, with Ilia an instant behind them.

"Justice, _stop!"_ she ordered. He hissed and bared his teeth at the other two dragons. Huo swiped at his head. He barreled into him, shoving him onto his side and snapping at his shoulder.

"Huo!" Sun waded into the fight. "Back up!"

Yang grabbed one of Fang's horns as he was about to bite Justice. He shook her off, his scales steaming in the cool evening air.

Fire boiled up in Justice's guts. He let smoke pour from his jaws as he lunged at them both, his claws outstretched—

_"Sit. Down. Now."_

Justice froze. He looked up, directly into the eyes of the silver ice dragon. Steele stared him down. Slowly, reluctantly, he sat.

"Thank you, Steele." Winter folded her arms and glared at them. "My patience is already hanging by a fine thread. _Do not test it further."_

His attempt at a defiant growl turned into a squeak when Steele bared his teeth. Huo and Fang, looking similarly cowed, slunk away from him to lie down with their riders. That left Justice alone with Ilia—which, in his opinion, was worth the close call with Steele. Judging by the look on her face, his rider disagreed.

"What the hell was that about?" she demanded.

He gave her a surly shrug.

_"Justice."_

His shoulders hunched up—the echo of an empty forest made him admit, "Lake."

"Blake?" Ilia crouched next to his head. "Why were you talking about her?"

"Nno... like... Lake."

"They don't like—" He snarled, and Ilia's eyes went wide. _"You _don't like..."

"No."

"Justice..." She scratched under his chin. "You've never even met her."

He scoffed. He didn't _need _to. She hurt his rider—that was all he cared to know.


	63. Lost and Found

**Alright, so while writing this chapter, I was trying to put in a dash (—) with alt code and I mashed a bunch of keys and ACCIDENTALLY MADE A RACECAR. AND NOW I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW I DID IT! :(**

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**63\. Lost and Found**

* * *

The sky had never felt so empty. Nimbus flapped his wings, not because he needed to—there were plenty of warm air currents for him to coast on—but because he wanted _something _to fill the silence besides the screaming wind.

Still no sign of the others. Or the pit dragons. Or _anything _except trees. Very blurry trees that kept getting blurrier the longer Nimbus flew without seeing a single other soul. He warbled nervously, and Scarlet ran a soothing hand over his shoulders.

They passed over a low ridge. Scarlet stiffened, and his hand on Zircon's back went still. "Dragons!" he shouted. "Two. I think I see Granite."

Nimbus was almost as relieved as he was disappointed. Even mind-controlled pit dragons seemed like a better option than silence, right now. He glanced down, and saw two blobs moving up out of the trees. Fairly close... for now. Granite wouldn't last long in a chase.

His wings flared, catching an updraft and sending him spiraling even higher. He closed his wandering eye and squinted, and thought he could make out the other, smaller dot. Riptide, if he had to guess—it looked kind of blue-grayish. They were both flapping hard to try and keep up.

He hadn't even stopped gliding yet.

Nimbus poured on a burst of speed. Scarlet let out a yelp that turned into a startled laugh. "Yeah!" he whooped. "Eat our dust!"

His last glimpse of the pit dragons below was of Riptide catching the same air current he'd been riding. Then she, and just about everything else, vanished into a haze of white. Scarlet's hands clenched on the reins, but he relaxed when a few moments passed and they didn't crash into anything.

Nimbus flew straight ahead. He could only see a few feet in front of him in any direction, but he thought he was getting better at this whole trusting his strengths business. Every so often they would pass out of the cloud and into brilliant blue sky, and he would use that instant to memorize the mountains and particularly tall trees that might be a hazard if he got too close. Then he would vanish back into the fog. He was already used to navigating when he couldn't see very well—this was worse than usual, but that was alright.

He'd outflown Dusk, a wind dragon with almost twice his wingspan—and better yet, he'd outmaneuvered her in the air. He'd even managed to fly through the trees with his eye acting up, though he hadn't done it very long before he hit something. It wasn't just Professor Oobleck's class—he really was good at flying.

They popped out of the clouds again, and Nimbus scanned the horizon. No sign of either of the pit dragons. A sheer cliff loomed uncomfortably close, but if he kept going in a straight line he wouldn't risk knocking into it. A massive waterfall tumbled down it, audible even over the wind, and dredging up a bittersweet memory of their secret place just outside Beacon.

Nimbus slipped back into the clouds. He'd find the others—even if he had to fly circles around every single pit dragon that was chasing them.

* * *

Zircon sniffed the air. There was the scent of his rider beside him, warm and soothing—though now tinged with soot and sweat. Pine needles underfoot. A rabbit somewhere nearby. Nothing threatening. He poked his head around the tumble of boulders they'd hidden behind, his ears twitching at the sound of the waterfall thundering down a few dozen feet away.

Nothing. He sniffed again, then cautiously stuck his neck out a little further. "It looks like they're gone," Sage murmured.

They hadn't been chased far—Nymph had told him to hide while the pit dragons were distracted. He'd frozen for an instant, terrified but dreading what it would feel like to obey. Then she tossed her head and said, _"Go. _We have a plan!" and he went.

That was hours ago, now, and he hadn't seen another dragon since. Zircon shivered. What if he couldn't find the others, and he got stuck here with the pit dragons? Worse, what if he had to leave the woods _alone?_

"Hey." Sage ran a thumb along one of his ears. "It's alright. We'll wait a few more minutes, then head out." Zircon relaxed—it had been silly to worry about being alone when his rider was right there.

Still. It would be nice to have Huo around if they ran into any Grimm. He wanted to ask Nymph what her plan had been, and Nimbus—

A winged shape slipped out of a cloud high overhead. Zircon's ears perked up. _Nimbus?_

"Down!" Sage hissed, crouching behind the boulder. "I think I see—"

"Nim!" Zircon said. He squinted up at the sky, but the silhouette was gone.

Sage glanced up. "Are you sure?"

"Sssoar."

His rider hesitated, and glanced longingly at the sky. "Okay," he decided. "We'll try and get a better look, but stay low."

Zircon was happy to stay low. He darted from tree to tree, sticking close to their trunks so that the leaves would hide him. It was hard to see much of the sky that way, though. He thought he caught another glimpse of Nimbus, but it might have been a bird for all he knew.

They came to a small ridge. Zircon glanced at Sage, who nodded and vaulted into the saddle. Once his rider had adjusted the straps, he took off at a gallop and launched himself into the air. The ridge was a little too low for comfort, and he almost hit a tree before he got himself up above the canopy, but soon enough he could finally see into the sky. It was empty.

He skimmed the undersides of the clouds and called, "Nimbus?"

Something massive streaked towards him. His panicked instinct to freeze saved him—Zircon slipped just under Dusk's outstretched claws and plummeted a hundred feet straight down. When he finally caught the air again she was already diving towards him.

He let out a shriek of alarm and flapped madly towards the forest, scanning the trees for someplace he might hide. Dusk would catch him if he landed, but she would catch him if he kept flying, too. She was already gaining on him.

Zircon started to dive towards the trees—and somewhere above him a voice shouted, "No!"

He pulled up sharply. Nimbus circled above and in front of him, Scarlet waving energetically from his back. "Up! Follow me!"

Zircon tried—but Dusk got above him, and it was all he could do to keep her from attacking Sage. Nimbus dive-bombed her, then got him to turn directly towards the sheer cliff where the waterfall was.

"Um... Nimbus?" Zircon's ears went back. "Are you _sure—"_

"When I count to three, go up!"

Nimbus' wandering eye was closed, so Zircon wasn't totally sure how he would _know _when it was time to turn... but he followed his brother anyway. "One!" The rock face loomed towards them. "Two!" Closer and closer... "Three!" They skimmed the surface of the cliff while, a few yards below them, Dusk slammed into it shoulder first and fell halfway down before she managed to steady herself in the air.

Zircon's yelp was drowned out by Nimbus crowing triumphantly, "See? She can eat our dust!"

"She's coming back around!" Zircon wailed.

Nimbus flicked his tail at Zircon. "Grab on!" Zircon did so, and an instant later they swerved upwards. He had just enough time to realize what his brother was planning, and make sure he had a good grip so they wouldn't get separated _again,_ before he was almost completely blind. He could sort of make out Nimbus' hind legs, but he couldn't see Scarlet at all through the gray haze.

Nimbus veered left, and squeaked when Zircon caught on a second too late and yanked on his tail. A few more unpleasant turns later, they started to fly in a straight line. Zircon kept hold of his brother, because he wasn't sure Nimbus would realize if he fell behind otherwise.

When they finally dropped out of the clouds again, the sun had disappeared behind the mountains. Zircon didn't recognize any of the landscape underneath them—and the sky was totally clear of pit dragons. His heart, which had been thundering since Dusk had almost dropped on his head, slowed.

"There you are!" Scarlet shouted. "It's about time you two caught up!"

Only Zircon was close enough to hear Sage's sigh of relief.

* * *

"Okay, so I know you're gonna say that was dumb—"

"Which part?" Yang asked, putting her chin in her hand and giving Sun a skeptical look. Or at least aiming a skeptical look in his general direction—it was almost full dark, with very little moonlight peeking through the clouds. She could barely tell where _Fang _was, and that only because she was leaning up against him for warmth.

Still. Sun could_ maybe _see her face, and he needed someone to look at him like he was an idiot. Because... "The one where it was _Nymph _who finally made you think about this, or how you said maybe like an ass and then immediately got separated?"

"Hey!" He said that a bit too loud and froze, waiting to make sure Winter wasn't about to descend on the pair of them. Then, in an urgent whisper, "Last time, Sage told me to wait and see if I was sure about what I was feeling, and it turned out I wasn't."

"Last time it was _you _who was feeling things."

"Well, yeah..."

"Look, Sun, I know you didn't mean it like that, but being in suspense over this kind of thing... sucks."

"Speaking from personal experience?"

"Nope, just watching the rest of you idiots," she said cheerfully. "Seriously though, I know you don't want to hurt Neptune or anything, but—"

"But _what?"_ Sun grumbled. "It's not like I meant to put a frozen lake and a firestorm between us before I could get my head together."

Yang winced. "True."

"I just wanted some time to think about it without him being right there, you know? To make sure that this is definitely something I want, because if it _wasn't _and I didn't _think _first I'd ruin the second-best thing in my life." Huo made a contented sound. Sun had probably given him a pat on the nose or something. "And then there were pit dragons everywhere, and if we can't meet up—"

"We will," Yang said—her confidence edged slightly with desperation. "And... sorry. You weren't being dumb, just super unlucky."

He chuckled. "What else is new?"

They sat for a moment in companionable silence, listening to the droning of distant insects. A familiar itch started in the back of Yang's mind. What were they doing _sitting _here when Ruby was—

Fine. She had Storm—and Penny, come to think of it—to protect her. She would be _fine. _And since only Sun could see more than a foot in front of his face right now, and any kind of light might as well be a giant neon sign to the pit dragons, they were stuck.

Talking helped. "So. Now that you've had some time... are you gonna go for it?"

She could hear the fond smile in Sun's voice as he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I think I will."

"Nice." Yang yawned and shifted a little closer to Fang. It was starting to get a bit chilly at night, and... and there was something unnerving about total darkness like this. They physical contact helped fight the sense that she was alone in some vast, empty space.

Yeah, now was not a good time to get into her own head. "So I guess it's a good thing you didn't ask Blake out."

No response. There was a slight shuffling from where Sun was sitting, and somewhere in the distance a twig snapped. Yang's heart jumped into her throat.

"I think there's something out there," Sun whispered. "I saw... I don't know. I don't think anything moved..."

Fang opened one eye. It glowed green, casting one side of Sun's face in a sickly light. He got to his feet—

"Sorry!" a hushed voice called out. "I just needed the bathroom, and I got a bit lost in the dark."

Yang glanced at Sun. He rolled his eyes and said, "We know, Ilia. You don't have to pretend you can't see."

A moment of tense silence. Ilia stepped forward, glancing uneasily from Yang to Sun and back again. "She told you."

"Well, yeah." Yang tried for an easygoing smile, though the whole popping out of the dark routine had rattled her nerves a bit. "She told us you tipped her off about Cinder. We still stuck around longer than we should have, but... thanks. For the heads up."

Fang, apparently satisfied that nothing interesting was about to happen, shut his eyes and put his head down. Yang was back to being completely blind.

"You're, uh... you're not still with the you-know-who, right?" asked Sun.

"...No."

"Okay, cool."

"What, that's it?"

Yang shrugged. "For now... yeah? As long as you don't get in the way of me finding Ruby, I really don't care what you do. We can worry about that stuff after the whole mind controlled pit dragon mess is over with."

"...Right."

"Plus Blake vouched for you," added Sun. "A friend of hers is a friend of ours!"

A pregnant pause.

"Ilia?" Yang prompted, squinting into the darkness.

"She sort of... left." Sun sounded put out. "Was it something I said?"

* * *

"Shh..."

Ruby hugged Storm around the neck, pressing her face against her scales. It was as much to comfort herself as her dragon. Darkness pressed against her eyes like a physical force—she could just make out her hands, like pale ghostly afterimages, floating in midair where they poked out of her sleeves. That, and Penny's green light, was all she could see.

Honestly, if it weren't for Penny she'd probably be on nervous breakdown number two-hundred-and-something. And if it weren't for Storm... but she wasn't going to think about _that._ "Can you do another scan?" she asked.

"Conducting infrared scan," Penny confirmed. Her light blinked yellow, then back to green. "No hostiles detected."

A twig snapped. Ruby's heart jumped into her throat. "What was that?!"

"Judging from the scans, it appears to be a rabbit."

"...Oh." She had no idea what she'd do right about now if she couldn't just _ask. _Probably assume every weird noise was Crucible sneaking up on her. Or maybe a different dragon... she couldn't really picture him sneaking anywhere.

"Penny, where are we?"

"I don't currently have access to the CCT system, but we are at approximately forty degrees, forty-four minutes north, and seventy degrees, fifty-two minutes west."

"Can you check for signals?"

"Ruby..." Penny hesitated, her light blinking yellow. "We are out of range of the CCT system. It's unlikely—"

"Can you just check? Please?"

"I will have to disable power saver to do so. Is that alright?"

It was Ruby's turn to hesitate. "Can you turn it off and on again really quick?"

"I can."

"And... how much power do you have left?"

"At current usage... approximately seventy-five hours before I need to power down."

Ruby's breathing hitched—she wasn't sure she could survive a whole night out here without Penny telling her that nothing was sneaking up on them in the dark. But... "Can you just check really quick? I promise I won't ask again until tomorrow."

"Acknowledged."

There was a brief silence. Ruby squirmed in sickly anticipation until Storm started to purr, and the vibration soothed her.

Penny's light flashed red, then green. "Atlesian military equipment detected."

"What?" Ruby blurted. Since when was _Atlas _chasing them?!

"A pistol, to be precise," Penny added. "This is... strange. Side-arms of this make are usually issued to members of the flight squad, but there should be more than one—"

Ruby's eyes went wide. "Winter!"

"I don't understand."

"Weiss' sister! She's in the flight squad. I can't think of any other reason there'd be just one soldier from Atlas out here." Ruby shot to her feet. "And the only way _she'd _be here is if Uncle Qrow got our message! He might be with her!"

Penny thought that over for a moment. "Would you like me to direct you towards the signal?"

"Yes!"

Another yellow flash. "I believe the source is stationary at this time. I will begin checking its location hourly at sunrise."

"Okay, yeah," Ruby said impatiently. "But which way is it?"

Storm got to her feet. Penny's light swung off to one side as the dragon pointed with her nose. "I can light the way," Penny said, a bit reluctantly, "but we would risk detection by the pit dragons."

Ruby bit her lip. "How close is the signal?"

"Forty-four point three six kilometers."

"Um...?"

"Twenty-seven point five six miles."

"Thanks." Ruby fidgeted as she thought. That would take a long time to walk at night. She'd be wandering around with a light on for _hours._ But if she _didn't _go after it... Winter probably had Steele with her. Which meant that if she waited until morning to start moving, she and Uncle Qrow would be long gone by the time she got there. If it was actually them...

"Light me up," she decided, squaring her shoulders. Penny's light turned white and brightened just enough for Ruby to make out where the ground was. Shadows still hung thickly from the trees... but she felt better instantly. She grinned at Storm and said, "Let's do this."

So she wandered into every scary video game she and Yang had ever played when their dad was asleep, with only a dim flashlight and seemingly endless creepy shapes in the trees that turned out to be hanging moss or birds' nests or clumps of leaves when she got closer.

A twig snapped. Penny's light flicked off in a heartbeat. In the next, an eerie cry split the silence of the night.

_"Urr-WAH!"_

Trembling, Ruby inched towards the noise as silently as she could. That hadn't been a dragon... or any animal she'd ever heard of. Was it some kind of mountain lion? An injured fox? A _Grimm?_

Another noise—this one coming from only feet away. A groan. A _human _groan. A very _familiar _human groan. Ruby put a hand out—and her fingers brushed against a shoulder. There was a startled squeak. Then, "Ren?"

Ruby's shoulders slumped in relief. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. "Just me."

Nora seized her around the middle, squeezed all the air out of her lungs, spun her around, and deposited her back on the ground. "Freya!" she whisper-shouted. "I found Ruby!"

A lot more twigs snapped as the dragon galloped towards them, often knocking into trees as she went. There was a confused minute where they all went in for hugs or nuzzles or friendly licks without really knowing where anyone was, and Ruby ended up with half her hair sticking up from Freya's enthusiastic greeting.

Even before Penny's flashlight turned back on, it felt like the darkness had retreated just a little further.


	64. Like Giant Geese

**Hello and happy Friday! Here's another chapter, starring pitch darkness and the many headaches of Sienna Khan.**

* * *

**Like Giant Geese**

* * *

The flap of Sienna's tent ripped open, and she stormed out with Corsac hot on her heels.

"Don't say it," she snarled.

"I haven't said anything," he said, in an infuriatingly mild tone.

Justice was gone. He'd refused to come back to the camp after Ilia had vanished, and now... maybe she'd come back for him, or maybe he'd run off to look for her. Either way, it was painfully obvious that the others had been right.

She should have known. To think she'd believed someone who'd spent _that _much time around a deserter was above suspicion...

Sienna caught herself groping for other possibilities. Surely Ilia wouldn't have killed one of their own... but there wasn't anything in these woods that could kill or capture her _and _Justice. Nothing except the Grimm—which wouldn't have bothered hiding the bodies—or maybe Brand.

That was a thought. Could Hazel...?

No. She had an easier time imagining Ilia assassinating one of their guard patrols than she did Brand turning against them. Dragons were loyal.

Usually.

"Sienna?"

She looked up, and met Perry's nervous look with a flat glare. "What."

"There's a problem at the lab."

Her left eye twitched. "A problem."

"Well... somebody got in."

_"What?"_

Perry winced. "There's a hole in the side. They cut through the canvas."

Corsac raised his eyebrows. "It's quite reckless of our former sister to linger in the area."

Sienna shook her head. "That wasn't Ilia. A few days ago she could have walked right in—it doesn't make sense for her to run and come _back."_

It still wasn't over. There was a traitor _and _a deserter. She didn't like this new trend.

"Regardless." Corsac waved a hand. "We'll need to post more guards outside."

"As soon as we can find people to spare." Sienna feigned a grimace. "But that might take a few days. Everyone's busy getting ready to move camp."

Corsac looked at her sharply—but, to his credit, he saw the slight widening of her eyes and nodded agreement. "I'll find my brother. The four of us ought to meet to discuss the scheduling."

Perry—who would have been considered unquestionably trustworthy a month ago—left looking confused, but none the wiser.

They did not assign extra guards to the lab that night—instead, the Lieutenant entered through the breach in the side and stood guard where no one would see him.

Sienna waited in her tent, along with the Albains and Harbinger, and the dragonets. Flux and Gigas were still reeling from Justice's disappearance, and didn't like to be left alone in the old storage tent. Between them they'd chewed through over a hundred feet of rope.

Gigas wouldn't stop pacing and letting out distressed croaks. Sienna reached down to soothe him. He butted his nose against her palm and twanged anxiously. Odd—usually Flux was the jumpier of the two.

They tried to pass the time talking logistics. Sienna started planning another raid to replace the ice Dust they'd lost, but Gigas kept whimpering for attention, and every time she pet him she had to scratch Flux behind the ears so she wouldn't be jealous. Eventually they gave up the pretense and sat in a circle, playing with the dragonets and Harbinger.

Midnight came and went. Sienna scooped Flux into her lap and watched the hatchling twitch and spark. She reached out to stroke her snout, preparing for a shock.

An shout split the air—and cut off so abruptly that it left a ringing silence in its wake. The bottom dropped out of Sienna's stomach. She lurched to her feet and sprinted for the lab with the Albains right behind her.

They weren't the first to arrive. People crowded around the entrance, kept at bay by one of the regular guards. The other was inside, kneeling next to the fallen Lieutenant. He was on his back, one arm thrown over his head—it had been mauled badly enough that it was hard to make out his tattoo.

Sienna froze in the entrance, staring blankly down at him. It wasn't the shock of seeing blood—there was a lot of it, but that was hardly new for her. It was the cracked and split skin, gone paler than normal and slightly shriveled. She knew those injuries. She'd dealt with them, on a much smaller scale, dozens of times before.

_Oh._

His head turned towards her. "Gods... _damn..._ hah... _hatch..."_

"I know," she said, so he'd stop trying to talk. He did, though not by choice—a fit of coughing demanded all of his breath. He'd probably breathed some of the desiccated air when he was attacked.

Sienna swallowed. She kept staring at the prone Lieutenant, but she hardly saw him—instead, two sun-yellow eyes swam across her vision, gleaming in deep shadows. She'd thought she'd died in the woods when they left her. She'd thought...

She must have been stalking them through the woods since she ran away. Attacking whenever they let their guard down. Dragons were supposed to be loyal, but she'd killed faunus that helped raise her as a hatchling.

The room spun sickeningly, and Sienna crouched down next to the Lieutenant so she wouldn't lose her balance. It didn't make any sense, _none _of it.

_Why? _Sienna wanted to scream. _Why is it always the ones I trust the most?_

* * *

Blake knew she had better nightvision than humans did. Better than dragons, even. That was the whole point of moving at night—she would be able to look where they were going, but the pit dragons couldn't spot them from the air.

What she hadn't known was how bad human vision got at night, under tree cover, with clouds mostly obscuring the moon. How far could Weiss see, right now? A few yards in front of her? A few feet?

The answer, it turned out, was absolutely nothing.

"Root," she whispered, gently guiding Weiss around it before she tripped. Again. She slipped on a small rock instead. Blake helped her keep her feet while she got her balance back, muttering darkly under her breath all the while.

The thing about Weiss being more or less blind was that it forced her to cling to Blake's side, for balance and so that she could be nudged around obstacles wherever possible. And she was hanging on a bit tighter than was strictly necessary, probably because stumbling around in a pitch dark forest knowing that mind controlled pit dragons and Grimm were about was, in her words, "Unnerving."

A twig snapped. Blake glanced to the side and watched a startled doe melt back into the trees. Weiss' grip on her arm tightened even further until she murmured, "Animal."

Pit and Specter were only slightly better off. At least, they seemed to be able to walk without tripping every other step, though they still stuck to their riders like big scaly burrs. Pit butted his nose against Blake's back to reassure himself every time he heard a noise in the distance. Specter grabbed Weiss' sleeve in his teeth and refused to let go.

It was slow going. Awkward, since they were all tangled together, and since they had to keep Weiss under Specter's wing so that she wouldn't be so visible from the air. Blake wasn't sure the pit dragons' night vision was that good, but she didn't want to take the chance.

No one was talking. Aside from Blake, when she warned the others about some snag on the ground or reassured them that the latest odd noise was nothing to worry about. That meant she had nothing to focus on except watching the woods around them... and the warmth at her side.

She kept sneaking glances and then scolding herself—it felt too much like taking advantage of the situation, since Weiss couldn't tell she was doing it. Although she _had _initiated earlier...

Blake shook her head. Later. They could talk about it more in the morning, once they'd found someplace to sleep. She doubted they'd go the whole night anyway—Pit was half asleep on his feet, and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open herself. She'd gotten used to sudden shifts in her schedule in the White Fang, but it had been a while since she'd pulled an all nighter.

She caught her mind wandering again and forced herself back into the present—and just in time. A flicker of movement in the trees made her stop and whisper to the others, "Wait." It might be an owl, or...

A dark shadow passed directly overhead and collided with a sturdy oak. It creaked and shuddered under a sudden immense weight, then settled. At the noise Weiss squeezed her arm, and Pit's nose pressed against her side.

"Don't move," she breathed. The dragon had landed only about fifty feet away. If they moved, and one of them tripped, or stepped on a twig, or made any noise at all... but there was no reason for whoever was controlling the pit dragons to land them unless it was to let them rest. They'd been flying for hours, after all, and there wasn't much point patrolling the skies when it was this dark. It would probably stay here until morning—and once the sun came up, it would find them. Their only chance was to leave now, even if she doubted they could sneak past it without making a sound. It would probably come to a fight.

A gust of wind shifted some branches aside. Blake couldn't see color when it was this dark, but she did catch the glimmer of pale streaks along the dragon's black scales. It was Inkwell, who had never been able to see them unless they moved.

Blake told Weiss, whispering into her ear so softly that she could hardly hear her own voice. Weiss gripped her hand and touched her palm.

She shook her head in confusion, remembered Weiss couldn't see her, opened her mouth to say she didn't understand—and realized that she was tracing letters on her skin. _Stay put?_

_Best bet,_ she wrote back.

Explaining all this to the dragons as silently as they could, they settled in to wait. Weiss leaned her head against Blake's shoulder—something she really wished she could properly enjoy.

_Later,_ she promised herself. They'd be safe once Inkwell left. Relatively speaking. As for how long it would be before they were _really _safe... She grimaced. Now that they were opposing the White Fang _and _the Council _and _Cinder, they might never be able to relax completely.

Blake let her own head rest on top of Weiss'. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Glynda watched the sun rise to the sound of Pepper's rumbling snores. It was one of those moments, with the sky streaked with vibrant colors and the trees glistening with morning dew, that it was hard to believe that anything was wrong.

Nautilus always slept like a rock—with her head turned away from the others, she couldn't sense his absence.

She felt the pit open up again, the surge of a tide that threatened to knock her off her feet. So she breathed, and watched the sky, and forced her mind to go blank. She couldn't break down yet... but the cracks were starting to show.

Motion caught her eye. Dark spots, flying in formation.

"Up!" she snapped. The two students were on their feet in an instant, their eyes still muzzy with sleep. Peter took a few seconds longer, but he saw the same thing she had without her needing to explain.

They were closer now. She could see the sunlight glinting off the lead dragon's scales. "Ren, Neptune, take your dragons to the lake. If they spot us, I want you to hide underwater."

"But—"

"Pepper?" Peter touched her nose. "Can you fly?"

She shifted from paw to paw. Winced. "Fffly," she decided.

"Peter, at this point I don't think it's wise to let her carry both of us," Glynda said. "I'll—"

"I'd be a poor friend if I let you give up."

Exasperated, Glynda opened her mouth to argue with him—but the words died in her throat. The formation was closer now. The lead dragon was silver and lacked the wide tail of a water dragon. An _ice _dragon? Their students hadn't learned about flight formations, and besides it was much too big to be Specter.

Ah. Winter Schnee. Not her first choice of ally, but at this point she'd take just about anything that wasn't a Council rider or a Grimm. _How _and _why _were questions that could be answered later.

"They're friendly," she said. "We need to hail them."

"Wha—"

Pepper flicked her tail—the draconic equivalent of a shrug—and let loose a booming bellow. All four humans clapped their hands over their ears. The dragons above them shifted course.

Glynda had expected riders from the Flight Squad. She was pleased to see her students instead—though not quite as pleased as Neptune, who collided with Sun at a dead sprint. They hugged. The moment stretched.

She cleared her throat. They jumped apart—Neptune beet red, Sun grinning from ear to ear. "Hey, Pepper! Glad you're okay!"

"Tank 'oo."

"We should keep moving." Glynda glanced up at Winter, who hadn't bothered to dismount, and caught a flash of disappointment in her eyes.

They went. Glynda chose to ride on Quake, so as not to strain Pepper too much. Tai gave her a sad, understanding smile, and offered her a granola bar out of his fanny pack.

* * *

This whole too-dark-to-see-your-own-feet thing? Nora hated it.

"So... we definitely can't make the light brighter," she said, already knowing the answer.

"Increasing brightness would also increase the likelihood of discovery," Penny answered.

Ruby tripped over a root and went down with a little yelp. Nora helped her up, while Storm fretted and licked her face. "I'm okay!"

"How much further again?" Nora asked. "'Cause I think the sky's getting lighter."

"Nine point eight four miles."

Nora made a face. Even after hours of walking, they were only halfway there. And even when they _got _there, Ren probably wasn't with this group. He was off somewhere with their professors. At least he was probably safe.

They walked. Endlessly. Through dark forest that all looked exactly the same, and was full of creepy noises that made them jump. Nora had been in spookier places before... but you never really got used to the atmosphere of the woods at night.

But eventually, the sky lightened. Penny turned the light off, and the colorless darkness turned into deep greens and warm browns. The air had that crisp, clean feeling it only got right after dawn.

Penny blinked yellow. "The signal appears to have changed trajectory."

"What?" Ruby demanded. "Did they take off?"

"Its speed indicates that it is traveling on dragonback."

Nora's heart sank. "There has to be a way we can catch them! Or... you're sure you can't send a message or anything? Like make her gun beep in morse code?"

The light went yellow for a moment before Penny finally replied. "You will travel faster if you run with your dragons."

They jumped into their saddles in a heartbeat. Once they were mounted, Penny told them to turn a little to the left. Storm surged forward in a dead sprint, with Freya lagging slightly behind her.

"I would advise a more sustainable pace," Penny said. "The signal is traveling in our direction—we only need to intercept it."

"Oh." Nora pulled back on the reins, feeling a little sheepish. "Right."

"I will warn you if we are falling behind."

Ruby sighed and rested her head against the back of Storm's neck. "What would we do without you, Penny?"

Penny didn't seem to know how to respond to that. So they moved at a trot—which was soon all their exhausted dragons could manage. A few times Penny had to urge them on, until she finally called for a halt.

"The signal is two point nine four kilometers away, and will arrive in an estimated four minutes and thirty seconds."

Four minutes and twenty-four seconds later, dragons appeared overhead. Nora counted six of them, flying in a neat V shape. "They look like giant geese!"

Ruby squinted. "I guess... oh! The one in the front is silver, just like Steele!"

Maybe a coincidence... but this seemed like one of those moments when it was better to do something impulsive than to not do anything at all. (To be fair, most moments seemed like one of those to Nora.) She looked around for a jumping off point, and found a small rise she thought Freya could probably manage.

"I'll flag 'em down, captain!" she called out, raising two fingers to her forehead in a sloppy salute.

* * *

A wind dragon erupted out of the woods.

Winter yanked hard on the reins just as Steele banked to the left, narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal collision. The dragon's startled squawk, and the wide eyes of its rider, were just enough for her to tamp down on the instinct to draw her pistol.

The rider stood up in the saddle and waved her arms. Winter recognized her—Nola? No, Nora.

When Nora noticed Ren, she almost jumped right off her dragon. There was a moment of confusion, as the rest of their formation mingled in the air and the students shouted greetings.

_"Quiet!"_ Winter roared. It was something that they practiced in the Flight Squads—sometimes you had to make yourself heard over the wind.

Finally, they quieted down and spiraled to the ground, where another dragon and rider waited. Ruby hopped up and down on the spot. "Dad! Uncle Qrow!"

Tai vaulted out of the saddle the instant Quake's paws touched the ground, and wrapped her in a hug that looked like a genuine suffocation hazard. Winter was left sitting on Steele's back, scanning the woods around them long after she'd confirmed that Weiss wasn't there, as if she'd suddenly appear on a twelfth glance.

_She can handle herself._

Not like Whitley, who had no dragon and no idea how to defend himself. Who had been missing for weeks now with no whisper of a ransom. Presumed dead, as far as the SDC was concerned. But as dangerous as a White Fang kidnapper was, that was nothing compared to a battle-scarred pit dragon controlled by a malevolent person.

"Let's go," she snapped. "We need to cover as much ground as possible while it's still light."


	65. Endurance

**Hello folks! Today we've got another chapter starring Inkwell, Pit and Specter's powers, and Tai playing the mediator.**

* * *

**65\. Endurance**

* * *

The sun was up. Not high—the forest was still washed in shadow—but enough that the sky had turned a pale blue and Weiss could see. It might have been a nice change, but Inkwell _still _hadn't moved.

"I don't like this," she whispered to Blake. "There's no reason to leave her here."

"She can't see us." Breath tickled the back of her neck. Weiss squashed her own reaction ruthlessly—now was _still_ not the time.

Blake was right, though. She'd often needed to wave to Inkwell to show her that she was there, even when she was only a few feet away. And once the dragon knew where she was, she still struggled to make out details.

Still. Inkwell was rested, and it was light enough for her to look for them—as well as she ever could, anyway. Perhaps Cinder had noticed she wasn't much use in searching, and left her here so that she could respond if one of the other pit dragons found someone? But in that case, didn't it make more sense for her to circle overhead so that she didn't need to take off on short notice?

She couldn't see them. If she could, she'd...

What? Fight Pit and Specter together? They might actually win that fight, or at least not lose so badly that they couldn't escape. It would be easier to pin them down until reinforcements arrived... but she _couldn't _see them. Unless...

The pit dragons were coordinating. Whenever their group had encountered one of them, more had started showing up minutes or even seconds later. So _someone _was controlling them all together, and that same someone knew when a dragon had spotted them. Which meant that they could probably see what the dragons were seeing. Weiss wasn't sure what exactly caused Inkwell's vision problems, but what if it was something that _didn't _interfere with whatever the human on the other end of that device saw?

She'd sit in that tree, perfectly still—exactly as she was now—and wait for more dragons to converge on them.

Weiss squeezed Blake's arm and whispered, "We have to run. Now."

Blake didn't argue. She sprang out from under Specter's wing and vaulted onto Pit's back, while Weiss mounted up beside her. Inkwell hopped down from the tree to land directly in front of them. They made to run around her. Pearl burst out of the foliage several hundred yards ahead of them, and Tallow did the same off to their left.

Pit led the way, barreling towards the gap between Pearl and Inkwell. They tried to close it. He jumped over a vicious swipe from Pearl, and Specter followed. Her second attack missed him by a hair, leaving a shallow scratch across Weiss' shoulder. Then they were clear, running at top speed back the way they'd come.

_Takeoff point. We need a takeoff point._

If the pit dragons got in the air first, they'd be caught. Worse, Tallow could set the forest on fire without worrying about losing them. At least Crucible wasn't among them—_yet._

A small slope caught her eye. "There!" Weiss shouted, pointing.

Pit let out a shaky, exhausted roar and charged. It was smaller than any of the ramps they'd used in class, but with his freckles glowing he managed it easily. Specter's takeoff was harder, and he clipped a tree on his way up that left a small cut on his wing.

"Sorry," she murmured, stroking his back to soothe him. He clawed his way out of the canopy. Pearl and Tallow followed—but the moment Inkwell launched herself she slammed full-force into a tree. She fell behind, but they still had two others on their tail, and she'd try to catch up as soon as she found somewhere better to take off.

Specter puffed out frozen mist. Tallow almost flew right into it, but he dodged it at the last second without losing too much distance. Specter tried again, with the same result.

Pit's powers drove Pearl part of the way down to the canopy—but he dropped almost as quickly as she did once he wasn't using them on himself. They'd spent most of last night walking, and even when Inkwell had forced them to stay still none of them had managed to sleep. The dragons were exhausted, Weiss was running on pure adrenaline, and she doubted Blake was doing much better.

They just had to get away from these two. Find somewhere else to hide, and sleep. She patted Specter again as a shudder went through him. "Hold on," she said, though it was lost in the wind. "Just a little longer."

* * *

Pit's ears were ringing. He couldn't hear anything except that, and his own racing heartbeat, and the flapping of his wings. It _hurt._ It hadn't hurt this much in a long time, not since before Professor Oobleck had given him a slower weight schedule in their flying lessons. The wonderfully light feeling that usually came with using his powers was now only a momentary relief, never enough to ease the burning in his chest and wings.

So when another dragon appeared on the horizon, directly in front of them, he didn't have the strength to pull it down. It was all he could do to follow Specter as he swerved to the left, dodging Diver as he swept down to meet them. That put them in range of a blast of fire from Tallow. He wasn't as bad as Crucible—he'd been about fifty feet behind them for a while now, and they hadn't been burned to a crisp—but he was still dangerous.

Specter took the brunt of the blast, and let an aura of cold radiate from his scales to counteract the heat. Seconds later Pearl wheeled over their heads and aimed a stream of water at their riders. Pit twisted around to protect Blake. It struck him right in the belly, and knocked some of the air out of his lungs. It took several long, horrible seconds before he could breathe again.

Blake tapped his shoulder. He knew what she wanted—so he forced his aching wings to cooperate as he grabbed himself and Specter with his powers. It was slower than before, and he felt a strange, sharp pain just behind his eyes. They flipped around and began to fly in the other direction, this time towards Vacuo. Tallow and Pearl rushed past them...

But Diver had been hanging back, and continued to follow a few hundred feet behind them. Not close enough to aim more water blasts at them, but too close for them to hide in the woods without him following. The others had dropped a bit behind, but they would catch up soon.

He was so tired, he couldn't even think to try and plan another escape. Everything was fuzzy, like someone had stuffed his skull with cotton balls. All he could do was angle himself southward, towards the distant Vacuo.

"What do we do?!" demanded Specter. He was still flying easily—Pit was slowing him down.

"You... go... ahead," Pit panted.

"What do we do that isn't _stupid?"_

Pit didn't have the energy to respond. His vision tunneled to the few dozen feet right in front of them, all his focus going to keeping his wings beating. Then, when he'd had a little time to rest his powers, he used them to give his wings a short break. Back and forth, back and forth, feeling a little less restored each time.

He'd keep flying until he fell out of the sky—he just hoped that would be long enough to get Blake somewhere safe.

* * *

Ilia was getting sick of holding her breath, waiting for someone to bring up the elephant in the room. Namely, the fact that she'd never set foot in Beacon and they all knew it. There were _professors _there. One of them, a strict-looking blonde woman, shot a sharp glance her way... but no one called her out.

Blake must have told _all _of them. And now all it would take was one disgruntled human to blow Ilia's cover before she could find her. She should really be paying attention to what the others were saying, so that she could plan her next move—but it was hard to think about anything except the fact that they'd found almost _everyone _and Blake _still _wasn't there.

The Schnee broke her out of her panic. "We need to split up," she said, flatly and with no room for argument. "There will be airships that can transport Storm in Vacuo, but if we're going to make it there on foot you need to go now."

Ruby looked like she wanted to protest, but she ducked her head and nodded. Yang bit her lip, casting an anxious glance into the trees—but she didn't protest.

_Some teammates,_ Ilia thought acidly.

"Transport her where, exactly?" asked Scarlet. "We can't exactly go back to Beacon."

"You'll be safe in Atlas."

Students shot nervous glances at one another. Yang folded her arms and said, "Atlas culls dragonets."

Winter's jaw tightened, but she didn't deny it. "The Council are trying to take over the dragonry. General Ironwood doesn't intend to let them. If you have somewhere else you'd rather go, I will happily drop you off there when it becomes _relevant." _She glared at them, as if daring someone to waste even more of her time with meaningless questions.

Qrow cleared his throat, a bit awkwardly. "So. I'm guessing the other group is the search party?"

"Yes. That's where I will be."

"We'll need at least one adult with the main group," added Glynda. "They haven't been shy about exploiting the fact that we have to walk, and it'll be difficult to hide all of us."

Qrow grunted. "How about you and Peter handle that?"

"I'm afraid Pepper and I will be somewhat less effective than usual," Peter pointed out, patting his wounded dragon's shoulder.

"Can't really help that." Qrow shrugged and glanced at his nieces. "You kiddos are gonna have to be part of the fighting force a little while longer."

Yang made a face at him. "We're _fine." _She slapped Sun across the back. "Our dragons beat Crucible!"

There was a chorus of, _"You what?!"_ mixed with Neptune's, "Damn it, Sun!"

Qrow just squinted at her and said, "Who?"

Judging by the frantic hand-flapping and indignant shouts from the various students, and Glynda's grimace, it was a big deal. Ilia mostly tuned that out, though—she was more focused on the way the Schnee's jaw had started to jump. She'd been around the two of them less than twenty-four hours, and she could already tell that putting her and Qrow in the same group was a _terrible _idea.

Thankfully, Tai came to their rescue. "We should probably split into more than one search party. Qrow and I are used to working together, so maybe we do a slower, more careful search while Winter flies ahead?" Winter shot him a grateful look, and nodded.

"Hang on." Jaune made a time-out sign with his hands. "When you say you _beat _Crucible..."

"Um." Yang grinned a bit sheepishly. "We got the plate thingy off him."

Sun's dragon growled at her.

"We helped _Huo _get the plate thingy off."

Glynda's eyes narrowed. "How?"

"He just kinda..." Sun made a vague hand gesture. "Puked up a plasma and melted it off."

"Not a strategy that we'll be able to repeat, then."

"We could do it with Tallow and Glory," Ruby said. "Should we... you know. Try to catch them and get them free?"

"No." Winter ignored the unfriendly looks some of the students gave her, at that. "We're going to need a better way of freeing them, if we want to help all of them. We're just as likely to lose one of our own dragons trying something that _reckless—"_ a pointed glare at Sun and Yang, "—than we are to accomplish anything. Maybe more so. The General will be able to get in contact with the original designer, which should give us better options."

She glared at each of them in turn, daring them to try and argue. No one did.

"It's settled, then. Peter will stay with the students, Tai and Qrow will search the forest, and Steele and I will fly ahead in case of another chase."

"I'll go with you," Ilia blurted. In an instant she found herself on the receiving end of Winter Schnee's full attention. It was as unpleasant as she'd imagined it would be.

"You're a student."

Ilia was already regretting opening her mouth... but she couldn't just let Winter go alone. What if Blake was with Weiss, and she _did _find them? Friends didn't leave friends alone with a pair of Schnees. "I can fight."

"No."

"Then I'll go alone." She beckoned to Justice. "I'm here to find Blake. I'm not following your orders."

One of Winter's eyes twitched. Ilia could see the arguments forming in her head... right up until the moment she realized that they would only waste more time. "I won't slow down if you fall behind."

"Fine."

When Winter mounted up, she let her coat ride up to expose a holster on her hip, and rested her right hand pointedly on the pistol while she gathered the reins in her left. The unspoken threat was clear—Ilia would not be wise to screw up her search for her sister.

That was fine. They were probably looking in the same place anyway. When they _got _there might be a different story... but Ilia was pretty sure Justice could outfly some pampered ice dragon.

* * *

Six shadows trailed behind them, now.

Specter tried to breathe more mist at Paprika and make her fall back, but the little cloud that he made was so thin she didn't even bother going around it. She was close enough for him to see condensation forming on her scales.

Even the attempt to use his powers made his chest hurt. It felt like he'd breathed a million tiny needles—and it didn't help that his lungs were already heaving to try and keep up with his frantic heartbeat.

He might have given up already, if he couldn't feel Weiss' weight in his saddle, reminding him of what would happen if he let himself fall out of the sky like he half wanted to.

The dragons that had powers they could use in the air, at least, were still out of range. Inkwell had caught up to the back of the flock that was chasing them, but she didn't seem to be gaining any more ground. Diver was a bigger problem—he might start shooting water at them if he got any closer.

Specter wished he could talk to Pit—to figure out a plan, or at least to feel a little less alone... but his brother needed all the breath he could get. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, his wings beating furiously, his freckles flickering like a failing light bulb.

They had to do _something, _but the only thing Specter could think of was hoping that one of the others would see them and help. But if they didn't meet anyone else...

Vacuo. It was the closest place he could think of to go. He wasn't sure how far it was—could he and Pit keep this up for hours? A whole day? He wasn't sure he could last that long, but if he had to...

They would be arrested. Specter's wings faltered at the thought. He knew what would happen after that—now that they'd run away, the Council wouldn't care if he and Pit were healthy or not. They'd be culled. But they wouldn't kill their riders—the pit dragons definitely would.

It wasn't the thought of culling that made Specter's stomach feel like it had just been filled with the killing mist. What if they escaped into Vacuo, and the pit dragons followed them? The Council would find those _things _that were making them attack.

He wasn't sure he could do that, even if it meant saving Weiss. And _that _was almost enough to knock him out of the sky.

Specter shook himself. They'd figure something else out, before it came to that. It would be okay. He focused instead on the horizon, like Pit, watching for something they could use to escape. Anything to push those horrible thoughts away.


	66. Search Parties

**Happy Friday everyone! This week, Pyrrha climbs a tree.**

* * *

**66\. Search Parties**

* * *

Pyrrha was disappointed to find that when Jaune's nose finally stopped bleeding, it still wasn't a pretty sight. He'd ended up with two black eyes to match the broken (and very swollen) nose, and it turned out he was prone to some pretty magnificent bruises. She counted at least five or six different colors.

She kissed him anyway.

They walked for a while, alternating between riding on Twiggy's back and hiking along beside her. Sometimes one of them would spot a dragon overhead, and they'd have seconds to find someplace to hide. Then, minutes later, they'd stand up with their legs cramping and their hearts still racing.

Eventually, it became routine. Hike until Twiggy was tired. Dismount. Hike until they were tired. Mount up. Hide. Keep walking... Until a mighty roar shattered the stillness of the forest, sending small animals skittering out of the bushes in a panic.

All three of them stopped. "Is that a pit dragon?" Jaune asked, frowning—or trying to, it was a bit difficult with his face so swollen.

"I don't think so..." The only times Tumbleweed had roared during their fight was when he was startled or hurt—like when she'd hit him with a rock. She felt a guilty twinge at that, and resolved to give him a treat when all of this was over. To Jaune she said, "Stay here."

There was only one way to find out, after all. She clambered up the nearest tree until her head broke through the canopy. Risky—she was sure her hair would stand out in this sea of green.

She spotted the source of the noise immediately. A clump of dragons, silhouetted against bright blue sky, all dipping and diving at one another. It was hard to tell how many there were with how fast they were moving, but she thought she counted five or six.

Before Pyrrha could climb down, the fight veered closer. Squinting, she could pick out Glory, Granite, and Kite... and two fully grown dragons that she didn't recognize in the slightest. Thrown, she perched in the tree for a long moment, frozen, trying to work out why they looked so _familiar _when they definitely weren't any of the professors' dragons...

_Yule!_

In an instant, it clicked. She couldn't recall the dragons' names, but she did distinctly remember a friendly blond man who had insisted that they call him Tai.

Pyrrha slid to the ground much faster than was safe. "Jaune! It's Ruby and Yang's father!" And probably their uncle, too, if she were to guess. "They're fighting the pit dragons!"

He scrambled into the saddle. "Let's go!"

She bit her lip. "Jaune... you're going to need to fly."

Twiggy's ears went back.

"But—" he blurted.

"I'll follow you, but we need to let them know we're here."

Jaune hesitated another moment, then reluctantly nodded. He picked up the reins.

Twiggy balked. She whined and said, "Rruh! Nno!"

_Earr-rah!_

"Go on," she urged them, forcing a smile. "I'll be fine." They didn't have much of a choice—it wasn't like they could miss the chance to meet up with reinforcements like this. They went.

Suddenly the forest was very, very quiet. Pyrrha broke into a brisk jog, following the trail of trampled undergrowth that Twiggy had left in her wake. Trying to ignore the ache she'd just been reminded of.

* * *

Pit dragons, Salty had just discovered, fought _dirty._

He and Quake were outnumbered, which didn't help, and they didn't want to hurt their opponents, which _really _didn't help... but even then, he hadn't thought it would be this difficult.

Then the fire dragon blew a cloud of smoke into his face, latched onto his belly—which would have hurt a lot more if she hadn't been missing her claws—and clung there with her scales scorching him. Quake was too busy with the enemy earth dragon to help, and Salty couldn't get her off while the wind dragon kept trying to scratch out his eyes.

He tried not to notice how young they were, or that they'd obviously had a lot of practice fighting dragons that were much bigger than them.

"Stop," he grunted, aiming a jet of water at the wind dragon. It knocked her off balance, and she fell about halfway to the ground before she could get her wings open again. That let him pry the fire dragon off himself, which _finally _gave him a moment to breathe.

"Land," Qrow advised him. "We're gonna have to pin 'em."

Salty obliged. As he dove towards the wind dragon, he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Another dragon—he just wasn't sure if it was friend or foe. He really hoped they wouldn't have to fight any more of the pit dragons. As it was, he thought they could _probably _stop them without hurting them, but at some point that would become too risky for their riders.

Fighting Grimm was so much less _complicated._

The wind dragon tried to intercept him on his way down. She managed to get her claws into his shoulder, but he wrapped a forepaw around her that kept her from doing too much damage. They fell together, right up until they ripped through the upper branches. Then he dropped her and let her hit the ground—not _too _hard, but it was enough to stun her for a few seconds.

Salty looked up just in time to see the fire dragon smash through the canopy and launch herself at his face. He ducked, then dodged when she aimed a blast of fire at Qrow. She lunged at him again, almost latching onto his foreleg with her teeth.

They were a lot more effective in close quarters—but they weren't very good at working together. Salty suspected this was because all their experience had come from the pits. He considered maneuvering between them so that they couldn't hurt him without hurting each other... then thought better of it. Whoever was controlling them wouldn't care.

He avoided another burst of fire, and dug his paws in so that a wing gust from the wind dragon didn't knock him over. Twigs snapped overhead. Salty leaped out of the way, just in time to watch Quake and the other earth dragon slam into the ground.

Quake landed hard on his side, and the enemy earth dragon promptly tried to pin him. Salty hesitated—he could try to grab her, but if he did the fire dragon might be able to hit Qrow.

Before he had the chance to decide, a third—and much smaller—earth dragon dropped through the trees. Salty recognized Twiggy, one of the student dragons they were there to save. She didn't even hesitate before she jumped on the wind dragon, warbling defiantly.

In other circumstances Salty might have tried to persuade her not to... but instead he opted to take care of the fire dragon before one of her blasts set the woods on fire. Now that he only had to contend with one at a time, it was easy enough to pin her down and hold her mouth closed with one paw. Smoke billowed from her nostrils, and her eyes rolled back in her skull as she tried to glare at him.

What to do now... Salty tried to grab the metal plate on her head in his teeth. He couldn't even scratch the outside, and no matter how hard he pulled, nothing happened. The heat of her scales started to burn the bottoms of his paws. Not sure what else to do, he pressed down as gently as he dared until she stopped fighting him.

"Sorry, youngling," he murmured, licking her brow. Her breathing was steady, which meant they should finish this up soon. She wouldn't be out for long.

Quake had finally managed to get the upper hand on his rival earth dragon. Salty helped knock several sturdy trees down, to pin her there until they could get away. That left only Twiggy's opponent, who had managed to leave a nasty-looking scratch on the tip of her nose.

It only took a few seconds for Quake and Salty to wrestle her away from the smaller dragon. Then Quake buried her up to her belly with his powers. "Come on," he told Twiggy. "We'd better get out of here before—"

"No!" she protested. "We have to get Pyrrha!"

Their riders finished having a similar exchange about half a second later, and they went to find Pyrrha. It wasn't difficult—she was less than a mile away. Quake crouched down so that she could climb into his saddle, and they were off.

Salty was, admittedly, a bit less confident about flying than he had been that morning. There were fourteen pit dragons, some of them much more dangerous than the ones they'd just fought. But they didn't have much of a choice, when it came down to it. Combing the whole forest on foot would take weeks that they didn't have.

They flew. And, not even ten minutes later, he spotted a new dragon on the horizon. Hopefully friendly... but he doubted any of the students would be flying alone, right now.

* * *

There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Normally Sage liked that kind of weather. Normally, he wasn't depending on cloud cover to help him and Zircon avoid mind controlled pit dragons. But here they were.

He and Scarlet landed on a cliffside long enough to decide that it would be better for Zircon to stay under tree cover where enemies would be less likely to spot him. Nimbus, meanwhile, could fly overhead, keep watch for pit dragons, and lead them away if they showed up.

Sage tried to argue with that idea, but Scarlet just grinned at him. "Don't worry about us," he said, patting Nimbus on the shoulder. "We can outfly any of them." His proud smile and the way his dragon's ears perked warmed Sage all the way down to his toes.

So he and Zircon walked. Nimbus passed in and out of sight through the leaves overhead, and Sage watched the slowly changing angle of the sunbeams filtering in through the canopy. It was almost pleasant, and almost boring, both of which were a relief after the past few days. Weeks, really.

Of course it wouldn't last. Sage stiffened in the saddle when he heard Nimbus call out, and squinted uselessly at the treetops. It was impossible to see what was going on. Then another call, this one much deeper. Zircon's ears perked.

Sage frowned. The pit dragons didn't seem to be able to talk, now. Which meant...

"Wake?" Zircon cocked his head to one side, confused but not frightened. If his dragon was calm, that probably meant there was nothing to worry about.

A few minutes later, Nimbus alighted on a nearby tree and barked in excitement. "Reinforcements have arrived!" Scarlet announced. Then, to Zircon, "Let's get you in the air, sweetie."

That didn't take long—they'd been traveling up and down low ridges for the better part of the day. All it took was a quick run up one, and he could see the reinforcements Scarlet had mentioned. Twiggy, Jaune, and Pyrrha, and two men that were very familiar but who he couldn't quite place. Then he saw the blond man's face, and the family resemblance jogged his memory. _Right. Yang and Ruby got a message to their uncle._

"What about the others?" Sage shouted to Scarlet. Then, when he didn't hear, he coaxed Zircon to fly a little closer and repeated the question.

"No idea! Haven't talked to them!"

Sage had to wait until they stopped for a quick break to ask. Then the blond man, Tai, pulled out several squashed sandwiches that the four students fell on like starving wolves, and he forgot he even had questions until he was finished.

While he was eating, he noticed that Jaune had an impressive pair of black eyes, and Twiggy sported a series of long scratches across her shoulders. Pyrrha looked mostly unhurt. When Scarlet wondered aloud what had happened to them, Jaune just winced and said, "Tumbleweed."

Finally, Sage asked after everyone else.

"We've found almost everyone," Tai told him. "Weiss and Blake are still somewhere north of us, we think."

"Are they okay?" Scarlet asked.

Qrow gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Weiss' sister is with us. She went on ahead, in case they're flying. For all we know they're already with her and Steele."

"Yeah..." Scarlet didn't sound particularly convinced.

Sage wasn't either.

* * *

Winter was beginning to regret letting Ilia come along.

It had seemed like a simple decision at the time—she would have gone looking for Blake no matter what Winter had done, and it seemed better to have her nearby where she could keep an eye on her. And yet...

Justice was incredibly aggressive, even for a fire dragon. He'd gotten into a fight with Fang and Huo within seconds of meeting them. His rider was strangely reluctant to talk about her time at Beacon. Both had shown up out of nowhere, in the middle of the Vacuan forest.

She might just be acting paranoid, with Weiss still nowhere to be seen. She might not.

Winter shook herself. It was done—there was no point letting herself be distracted by what-ifs. She scanned the trees below. Still nothing. How far north _were _they? Were they still together, as Ilia seemed to think, or had they been separated after Yang and Sun left the chase? Had they passed them?

Steele hummed. She couldn't hear it, but she felt the vibration through her gloves and relaxed slightly. If they _did _pass overhead, Weiss would get their attention. Unless she didn't see them, or didn't recognize them, in which case Qrow and Tai would be making a more thorough search.

Somehow the idea of Qrow being responsible for finding her little sister failed to reassure her.

Winter forced herself to _focus. _She scanned the horizon. Nothing but blue. Nothing to block her view, except for a rugged mountain peak off to the northwest.

A dark speck darted out from behind it. And another, instants later.

Before Winter had time to wonder if that was them, or more of the pit dragons, another dragon followed, and another and another, until she could see a whole train of them. She tried to count, got nine the first time and ten the second.

Winter angled Steele on an interception course, and loosened her pistol in its holster. The anxiety of the wait fell away now that it was time for action—replaced by alertness and a surge of adrenaline.

She didn't bother checking to see if Ilia was following. Either she would, or she wouldn't—it didn't matter. Winter allowed herself a wolfish smile. Steele would be enough. He always was.


	67. Reunion

**Hello everyone! This chapter, Winter and Steele vs. a flock of pit dragons, and a very long day finally ends.**

* * *

**67\. Reunion**

* * *

Sunlight glinted off of Specter's wings. He was in the lead, with Pit close behind him, separated from the enemy dragons by only a dozen yards or so. Both were obviously struggling just to keep themselves in the air.

Steele swept in closer. There was an instant of panic, where Specter started to veer away from him. He called out, saw Weiss' head snap up from where it had been bent against the dragon's neck. They managed a little burst of speed as they turned towards him and Winter.

And Justice. He glanced at the other dragon out of the corner of his eye, still not quite comfortable leaving him at his back...

But there were eight—nine—_ten _pit dragons swarming after Specter and Pit. Too many to be picky about allies. So he ignored Ilia and Justice and focused all his attention on speed. Winter shifted on his back. Probably itching to draw her pistol, but the academy had taught her only to draw a weapon if she planned on firing it. The off chance that her gun might do something to those metal plates that dragon claws couldn't wasn't worth the risk of hurting them.

The one controlling the pit dragons knew their chances of catching their prey were dwindling. They made a last, desperate attempt to hit Pit with a blast of water. He dropped to avoid it, stalling in mid-air—but then Steele was in range of them.

He dove in headfirst, screeching at the top of his lungs. The instant he was ahead of the younger dragons, he filled the air with deadly mist. Pit dragons swerved left and right, banking hard to evade the attack.

There were too many of them to fight, even if he was willing to hurt them. "Keep going," he roared at the younglings. "We'll draw them off!"

Specter tried to protest, but before he could get even a word out he wobbled in midair and dropped twenty feet. Sensing that he was at the limits of his endurance, he obeyed. So, after a few insistent tugs from his rider, did Justice. Steele wasn't sure how to feel about that, but...

Justice _might _be a risk. The two exhausted dragons alone in the woods, where there were Grimm and pit dragons about, was _definitely _a risk.

He and Winter would just have to make this quick.

* * *

"Justice!" Ilia shouted in his ear. "Come on!"

She tugged at the reins. He tugged back, frustrated. He didn't want to go with _Blake, _especially not when there was another stuck up ice dragon with her. Besides, he'd been itching for a fight since—

The wind dragon in the lead turned her head, and sunlight glinted off her bared teeth. There was blood on them. His ears went back. This time, when Ilia pulled on the reins, he let her turn him.

He wound up almost neck and neck with a struggling Pit—close enough that he could hear the disbelieving shout of, _"Ilia?"_

"Later!" his rider yelled back.

Justice was not looking forward to later.

He glanced behind himself. Steele had cut off most of the dragons that were chasing them by breathing frozen mist everywhere—but not quite all of them. Two slipped past him, the big wind dragon and a much smaller, dolphin-grey water dragon.

The ice dragon, Specter, groaned. Pit stayed silent. Justice could see his chest heaving with the effort of staying in the air, and for a second all he could think of was baby Gigas and his tiny wings. He swept down at the water dragon, who was nearest. Ilia stiffened in alarm on his back, but didn't try to stop him. "We need to lead them away!"

Too close. The pit dragon lunged for him, her teeth snapping shut inches from his throat. Justice roared indignantly and buffeted her with his wings. She twisted and bit his foreleg. He hissed in pain, and in frustration that he had to protect _them._ His claws lashed out, tearing a gash in one of her wing membranes.

"Justice!" Ilia started to shout.

"Stop it!" Specter screeched. "You're going to hurt her!"

Justice's ears went flat. "I'm trying to _help," _he snarled back, and snapped at the water dragon again. She dodged that, and swiped her claws across his chest.

"She can't help it!"

"What? You want me to let her attack you?" Justice blocked another vicious bite by cracking her across the nose with his tail. It wasn't like he was going for her throat or anything—they had to get these two to stop chasing them _somehow._

Or, he supposed, he and Ilia could just fly ahead while the other two slowed them down.

Justice was seriously considering doing just that when there was a whistle overhead. Steele had caught up to them again, with the rest of the horde close behind him. He descended on the big wind dragon. She tried to bite his foreleg. He dodged, and then kicked one of her wings. She stalled in the air for just a heartbeat, lost altitude, and had to bank hard to the left to avoid slamming into a tree.

A cloud of mist separated the water dragon from Justice. She tried to fly through it, then swerved when ice crystallized at the tips of her wings. Others approached, while Steele darted back and forth in front of the pack, harrying them until they faded into the distance.

Justice, slightly awed despite himself, almost managed to forget who he was now alone with. Then he noticed Specter giving him a disapproving glare—though there wasn't much heat to it when he was still struggling to keep his wings flapping.

He rolled his eyes and ignored both other dragons. Now that they'd found Blake, Ilia could tell her that she'd defected, too, and ask her to go wherever they were going. She would say no, and he and Ilia could be alone again.

* * *

Winter leaned into yet another hairpin turn. Instinct screamed at her to draw her gun, but she held back—these weren't Grimm, just dragons with supremely bad luck. Still, she couldn't quash the anxious feeling that she should be _doing _something to contribute to the fight.

A glance over her shoulder told her that the younger riders were almost out of sight. Good. That meant it was almost time to break away. Not a moment too soon, either. Steele swept under the outstretched claws of a large water dragon, then flipped sideways so that he could slip between a blast of fire and a pair of snapping jaws. Without looking away from the action, Winter flicked an ember off her shoulder.

At least they weren't that comfortable in the air. Steele could outfly any one of them easily—but there were ten of them, and they were _vicious._ Another look behind her. Only a trio of tiny specks could be seen on the horizon. One of the pit dragons broke away, and Steele had to chase it down and grab one of its wings. By the time it stabilized, it had fallen far behind the others.

This time when Winter looked back, she couldn't tell where the students were. She waited another minute anyway, to be sure, but they didn't reappear. Probably down below the tree-line, if she were to guess. They didn't have many other options with Specter and Pit so exhausted.

Winter tapped Steele's shoulder to signal that it was time. He stopped breathing mist at a three-legged earth dragon and veered sharply to the left. About half the contingent followed him, while the rest spread out in the direction the students had disappeared.

She scowled, but this was probably the best she was going to get. Better to get back to Weiss quickly, so that she could defend the group if any of the pit dragons got lucky.

The sky was clear. No clouds to lose the pit dragons in, and too many pursuers for that to work even if there were. She scanned the horizon, and spotted a jagged cliffside that had collapsed into a series of natural pillars and arches, most of them thousands of feet high.

Winter allowed herself a tiny smirk. She didn't have to touch the reins—Steele had seen it too.

Whoever was controlling the pit dragons clearly wasn't stupid. The earth dragons peeled away in a heartbeat, as did the gigantic wind dragon. It was fast, yes, but the missing half of its tail meant it wouldn't be able to make especially sharp turns. A few others dropped back, too, though she couldn't tell why just from looking at them.

The hold-outs split up. The wind dragon went up—it wouldn't get to the other side as fast as she did, but it might get across fast enough that it wouldn't lose her. Half the rest went right, the other half left. They would need to go all the way around the rock formation.

A few kept following her—a pale water dragon, a red-brown fire dragon, and the toothless water dragon. Two of them young and small, one larger and with more powerful wings. None were trained in the Flight Squads.

The first pillars loomed to either side of them. Inside was just as Winter had hoped—a maze of jagged pillars and narrow gaps. She took the long view, her eyes darting from side to side, plotting their course. Always taking the most difficult paths she thought they could handle, and avoiding places where their pursuers could get around obstacles too easily. It was up to Steele to dodge. He folded his wings to his side to dart through the space between two cliffsides, then veered sharply to the left to duck under an archway. With a thump and a pained yelp, the pale water dragon fell behind.

Through another narrow gap. Up and over a smaller cliff. Under an arch. Through a cave burrowed almost straight through part of the mountain. Only the fire dragon was still following. Winter guided Steele into a steep dive. They skimmed the surface of a small lake, and passed through a gap so narrow that even folded, the tips of his wings skimmed the sides. He left a cloud of deadly mist behind, and their last pursuer was forced to swerve hard to the side.

They emerged on the other side of the cliffs. Other dragons were still following, she was sure, but none of them had line of sight. Winter angled Steele under the canopy—he'd have to fly slower this way, but even if the pit dragons spread out to search for them they'd be hard pressed to pick up their trail. All they had to do now was return to the area where they'd last seen the students.

Her knuckles were white against her radio, as she told Tai and Qrow that she'd found them. The action was over—anxiety had returned.

* * *

"Pit." Blake nudged his shoulder gently. Then again, harder. "Pit!"

He groaned and rolled onto his side. She looked up, saw blue sky through the trees, and winced. "I'm _really _sorry, but you need to get up."

"Nnnn."

With a grumpy flick of his tail, Specter pressed his nose into Pit's side. It was apparently cold enough to shock him onto his feet. Blake pointed to a spot about thirty feet away. Not ideal, exactly, but she doubted they'd make it much farther. Besides, they should probably stay in the area so that Winter could find them.

When the dragons finally dragged themselves into the bushes, there was a pair of hefty thumps as they both collapsed onto their stomachs. Then, silence.

Blake was about to join them when she turned around and froze. Ilia's dragon was staring at her.

"Justice," Ilia said, a touch of warning in her tone. "Relax."

He huffed. Blake felt the rush of warm air even from several feet away. But after several suspicious backwards glances, he wandered over to where the other two dragons were. Specter's tail flicked. Pit didn't stir—it looked like he'd already fallen asleep.

Blake's head swam with questions. One rose to the top, and she opened her mouth to ask what the dragon's name was before she remembered that Ilia had just said it. Justice. She blinked. Blinked again, and almost tipped over backwards. The adrenaline she'd been running on for the past day was gone, and fatigue washed over her. "Why... why are you here?"

Ilia glanced at Weiss and turned an uncertain shade of orange. "I left the Fang."

"That's good." Belatedly, Blake managed to process what her friend had actually just said. "Wait. What?"

The rest of the story tumbled out of Ilia in a rush. She spoke quietly, so that Justice wouldn't hear. Explained how angry he was getting, how even the new leadership didn't seem to care. That they thought she was sabotaging their lab.

"That lab," Weiss interjected. "You know where it is?"

Ilia's skin turned a deep purple. "It's none of _your _business if I do."

Weiss' eyes narrowed. "This _is _one of the labs that's experimenting on dragon hatchlings, isn't it? I'd like to make as many of those my business as I possibly can."

_Oh no._

Before Blake could even try to intervene, Ilia had taken a threatening step forward. "Is that right? Look, _Schnee—"_

"Stop!" Blake stepped between them, her hands out. Then, to Ilia, "I'm glad you got out."

Ilia stopped glaring at Weiss long enough to glance at Blake, then the ground. "Thanks."

"And you're... you're okay? No one's chasing you?"

"No."

"Good." Blake took a steadying breath. "Cinder's people told us they've been making changes in the lab. They said it was better. Since you're here... I'm guessing that was a lie."

Ilia shrugged without making eye contact. "It's better."

"That's not exactly a high bar," Weiss pointed out.

Ilia stiffened, but before she could say anything Blake interrupted with, "Better how?" Then, when Ilia wasn't looking, she gave Weiss a look that she'd hopefully interpret as _please let me handle this._

"It's more systematic now. Sometimes Cinder gives us formulas."

Weiss' eyes flashed, but she didn't say anything.

"How many died?" Blake asked. "In the last week you were there. The last _day."_

"What _else _were we supposed to do?" Ilia burst out. "We were doing everything we could to make it better!"

"If you believe that... why are you here?"

"I told you." Ilia glared at her shoes. "I was worried about Justice. And they thought I was sabotaging them."

"Because you told them they were going too far," Blake guessed. "You suggested ways they could change things. Ways to hurt less people, that you thought they'd want to know about because you thought that's what they were trying to do."

Ilia flinched. "It's not like _that."_ Not like _him, _she meant. "Nothing was _working._ I thought it would help Justice to spend some time fighting Grimm, and talking to people in outer villages, but that would slow things down. I guess they thought it would be worth it, in the end. Even if..."

"Even if all those dragonets died?"

Ilia opened her mouth, glanced at Justice, and closed it again. "Yeah."

A fresh wave of exhaustion crashed over Blake. She rubbed her eyes, sighed, and said, "I'll keep an eye out for Winter. Weiss, maybe you should get some sleep."

Weiss' eyes flicked towards Ilia and Justice. "If you're staying awake, so am I."

Blake nodded once, and took to the trees. Weiss climbed up with her, and kept half an eye on the dragons sleeping below them. They sat in exhausted silence, their shoulders touching, scanning the sky for a flash of silver.

* * *

Winter returned alone, with none of the horde of pit dragons that had been chasing her in sight. When Weiss asked her how she'd managed _that,_ she only smirked and said that the Flight Squad trained in aerial maneuvers.

Ilia watched from the sidelines. The _second_ they went after Blake...

"Here." Winter pulled two packets out of her saddlebag and passed them to Weiss and Blake. They turned out to be sandwiches—which vanished in half the time and with none of the manners Ilia would have expected of a Schnee.

Winter watched them, her lips slightly pursed, her expression slowly softening as the pair of them drooped where they stood. She sighed. "Go," she said, her voice still snippy, and gestured towards their dragons. _"Sleep._ You'll obviously be useless until you do."

Weiss mumbled something that might have been an attempt at an argument, but let Blake lead her over to where both their dragons lay in a slumbering heap.

Leaving Ilia alone with Winter Schnee. Who did, admittedly, seem slightly less ready to snap at a moment's notice now that her sister was safe. Ilia noticed Justice glaring in her direction, though, and decided it would probably be better to get some sleep herself. Or at least _pretend _to—she wasn't sure she was comfortable being unconscious just now.

She walked around Specter, who hardly even twitched. He and Pit lay curled around one another, forming a little dip between them. Blake was already asleep. Her head rested in the crook of Weiss' neck, and one arm was thrown over her side.

Ilia stood there for a moment, waiting for the dull ache run its course. Because of _course _she had. She swallowed the bitterness and turned away, telling herself that she was finished. Blake had awful taste, and that was that.

The ache stubbornly refused to go away.

She hadn't had a full night's sleep since leaving the Fang, which meant that her plan of pretending to sleep turned into Justice nudging her awake with the sun noticeably closer to the horizon. Blake was still out cold. Ilia stood up, and watched Winter approach the other two.

She moved as if to touch Weiss' shoulder, but before she could, Blake snapped awake with a start. Weiss opened one bleary eye and sat up. "What...?"

"We should move," Winter said. "It'll be too dark, soon."

"We'd been traveling at night..." Blake started to say, then trailed off.

Winter frowned at her. "Not a bad idea," she decided, "but speed is our priority now that we've found you."

Blake hesitated, glancing at Ilia. "Right." She waited until Weiss and Winter were busy mounting up, then walked over.

"What?" Ilia asked. Her voice came out colder than she'd meant it to.

Blake winced. "I... we have to do something about that lab. Not now—we should get backup from the others. But I need you to tell me where it is."

Ilia resisted the urge to let her skin turn scarlet. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Do you have _any _idea—"

"Do you?" Blake cut in, and Ilia went silent. "You have a dragon, now. You _have _to know it's not right."

"I don't _like _it, but—"

"But _nothing, _Ilia!" Blake hissed, her ears going back. "There _are _safer ways to create hybrids. The White Fang aren't using them, because they don't think they're fast enough. They think that getting more power _now _is worth killing as many hatchlings as it takes. Am I wrong?"

"It's not..." Ilia tried to say, but somehow the words got stuck in her throat. She remembered those horrible yellow eyes boring into her. _It saw the lab. It must have._

"We don't have to bring it up now," Blake said, her voice softening a little. "But when we get back to the others... someone has to go back there, before they move again."

"I'm not a traitor," Ilia snapped, but it sounded weak even to her.

Blake smiled sadly at her. "No. You're not."


	68. By Land, By Sea, By Air

**Hello, and happy Friday! This week's chapter is starring a surprise swim, and splitting the party.**

* * *

**68\. By Land, By Sea, By Air**

* * *

There wasn't much Ragnar could do to shock Oscar, by now. After all, he'd fallen out of the sky, eaten several hundred pounds of meat in one sitting, and stumbled across Glacier in the middle of the woods. So maybe he wasn't exactly _shocked, _when they swam the last leg of their journey... but he was a bit startled.

Whitley, who was sitting an ice dragon with cold sea water up to his shins, seemed a lot more than that. "Your guess is as good as mine," he grumbled, "as to which continent we'll be on when we land."

He turned out to be wrong—it wasn't a continent at all, but an island. Oscar squinted at the shoreline, which from this direction looked completely uninhabited. Nothing but dark, forbidding woods as far as the eye could see. "Um... Ragnar?"

Ragnar didn't reply—his head was underwater.

They hit the coast. Oscar was glad to unstrap himself from the saddle and stretch his legs, since they'd been in the water for several hours. He glanced into the trees. A week ago they might have scared him, but between Ragnar and Glacier he didn't think they had much to worry about.

He was very glad they hadn't run into any Grimm in the water.

"I don't suppose you'll tell us where we are?" Whitley asked Glacier, who as usual didn't answer.

"Atch," Ragnar said, which still didn't mean anything to Oscar. He shrugged at Whitley, mustering a little grin. Whitley rolled his eyes and marched into the forest, but Oscar thought he caught a hint of a smile on his face before he turned away.

They tramped through the forest. Oscar started to notice signs of other people around—a distant engine, a candy wrapper on the ground, and eventually a path that wound its way between the trees. Then, finally, Ragnar stopped.

"Rrow," he announced, flicking his tail towards a few nearby trees. Through a gap between them, Oscar could see a small cabin, dwarfed by a barn that squatted just behind it. As he watched, the back door of the cabin swung open. Out walked a girl that looked a little older than he was, a tiny wind hatchling perched on her shoulder.

Ragnar made an odd noise. Oscar frowned at him, concerned. He didn't get the chance to ask what was wrong—the hatchling lifted its head, sniffed the air, and peeped. Its rider looked up and saw them. She froze, her eyes flicking towards her hatchling, then the cabin, as if she was thinking about bolting inside.

"Lo," Ragnar said, poking his head out from between the trees. "Rrow?"

"Uh." The girl backed up a few paces. The door banged open again, and three more heads poked outside. "A row of what?"

A frustrated huff. Ragnar glanced at the other three teenagers, each with a dragonet clinging to them. Or, in the case of one girl, hanging by its teeth from her sleeve. "Com," he told them. "Ssafe."

Glacier let out a little hiss that Oscar took to mean _Speak for yourself._ His wings flared as they approached. They seemed to get the message, and steered clear of him and Whitley. The boy with the earth dragon peeled away from them towards the barn, casting nervous glances over his shoulder as he went.

All of a sudden, after weeks of being alone except for Ragnar, Whitley, and Glacier, Oscar found himself surrounded by curious faces. He edged a little closer to the ancient earth dragon.

The other boy, who had a water dragon sitting on his head, nudged the girl with the fire dragon and whispered, much too loudly, "Is that _Ragnar?"_ Oscar didn't hear her reply, but her eyes flicked towards Glacier—probably noticing that Ragnar wasn't the only strange member of their litttle group.

"Rrow?" Ragnar asked again. And, when they all stared blankly back at him, "Tai?"

"Oh!" Comprehension dawned on the wind rider's face. "You mean Mister Qrow and Mister Tai?"

Ragnar made a sound like a suppressed snort, and nodded.

"They left," said the boy. "Um. If you're trying to... give them orders? From—" The fire rider smacked his arm, hard, and he winced.

Ragnar paused. Apparently absorbing this new information. Then he took a deep breath, huffed, and said, "Ffuck."

Oscar choked.

* * *

Even as the youngling burst into the barn to warn her, Tempest had already smelled him. Her ears perked up, her eyes going wide with a mix of relief and dread. "Rrak-narr..."

She trotted outside, the youngling following close behind her, York hot on his heels. Ragnar lifted his head and barked a greeting at them.

Tempest stopped in front of him, a friendly greeting dying in her throat. Instead she butted her forehead against his flank and said, "I'm sorry." She felt him shudder, and pulled away.

"I need to talk to Phoenix," Ragnar said, not meeting her eyes. "Do you know how to find her?"

Her ears drooped even further at the mention of her sister. "No. Why?" She noticed for the first time that Ragnar wasn't alone—there were two humans, even younger than her students, and a fully grown ice dragon that looked ready to bolt. "And how...?"

"This is Glacier," Ragnar explained. Badly.

"I know he's Glacier," Tempest said, her tail flicking in agitation. There weren't that many ice dragons. "Don't you live in Atlas?"

Glacier stared at her, and said nothing.

Tempest moved to sniff the white-haired boy. He flinched and backed away. The ice dragon's ears went back, and he let out a warning hiss, his teeth bared. She retreated—she could already tell that the boy smelled like Ruby's partner. Looked like her, too. So he was one of the humans that could have ice dragons, but why was he with this one? Where was Glacier's rider?

"It's a long story," said Ragnar. "Apparently. He hasn't told me much."

"Why is he with you?"

Ragnar glanced at Glacier, who flicked his tail and didn't answer.

_Oh. _Tempest's insides twisted into a sympathetic knot. "Why do you need Phoenix?" she asked, hoping to change the subject. Glacier obviously didn't want to talk about it.

"I'm looking for the students." Ragnar touched the top of the other boy's head with his nose. "Oscar helped me recover after the attack at Beacon. Now I need to find them so I can help."

"Right." Tempest glanced at Glacier. Was he looking for Weiss, then? "I don't know where Phoenix is, but Tai and Qrow went looking for Yang and Ruby. They sent a message saying they were in the woods north of Vacuo."

"That's perfect!"

Glacier's stare intensified. "Singing one?"

"Weiss?" Tempest guessed, and when he nodded she said, "Yes."

"Go." Glacier grabbed Whitley by the back of his shirt—ignoring his startled yelp—and started walking due north. "Go now."

Ragnar sighed. "Glacier. You're going the wrong way."

Glacier reluctantly put Whitley down. "Go," he said again.

"I don't think I can fly yet," Ragnar admitted.

Tempest's ears went back. "What?"

He extended a wing, showing her several long gashes in the membranes. They were mostly healed, and held together by neat stitches, but the stress of flight might tear them wide open again.

She considered this for a few moments. "Well," she said slowly. "Tai and Qrow said they were going to find the students. And they'll get there before we do."

York let out a confused warble at the 'we.'

"No!" Glacier insisted. "Find singing one. Find—"

Tempest huffed at him. He went quiet and let her continue. "The thing is, they'll have to go somewhere after that happens. And it can't really be here. Hiding four people is one thing, but they'd have to camp in the backyard if _everyone _showed up. Besides... the students want to fight."

Ragnar shuffled his wings uneasily. Glacier just cocked his head to one side.

"You want to go where they're going next and meet them there," Ragnar said.

"I think it's going to be Atlas."

He tensed. "Atlas? But—"

"James is helping." That seemed to make Ragnar uneasy. Tempest wasn't surprised—his rider had always been the cautious one, while James could be rash at times. "Atlas is the last academy left that the Council haven't taken over. If it was _me, _I'd go there."

Ragnar considered that for a few minutes. "Very good," he decided, dipping his head low. Tempest almost squeaked—if someone had told her as a hatchling that _the _Ragnar would make such a respectful gesture to her...

"Right," she said, flustered. "York? Can you look after these students?"

York stared at her. Then, slowly, glanced over at the humans. "Um..."

"Why are you looking at us like that?" one youngling asked nervously.

A brief argument followed. Tempest refused to stay behind—she'd done it when Tai and Qrow had promised her they had things in hand, but this was different. If the Council really _did _move on Atlas, and Yang and Ruby were there, that meant she would be there. Period. York wanted to go too, which made her balk until she remembered that one of the students' mothers was due back by later that night. They, and the broodies, would be okay.

"Can you wait until she gets here?" Tempest asked York. "And then... their families are riders that want things to change. I know there are other riders like that."

"I'll spread the word," York said, with a nod.

"Good." Tempest turned towards Ragnar and Glacier. "Then I'm coming with you."

Glacier's eyes narrowed a bit suspiciously, but he didn't argue. He just said, "Go now?"

"Yes," Ragnar agreed. "We should."

They explained things to the younglings as best they could. It took a long time, and she wasn't totally sure how much they'd understood. Tempest did at least manage to remind them to keep up with York's ointment—much to his dismay.

"Right," she said at last. "Lead the way."

Ragnar nudged Oscar with his nose, prompting him to clamber up onto his back. Glacier just grabbed Whitley by his shirt again and dropped him there. Tempest followed, alone.

* * *

"Well, kids!" Tai said cheerfully, his hands on his hips. "Looks like we're finally out of the woods!"

There was a brief pause. Then Yang burst out laughing and clapped her dad on the back, while Storm watched with her head tilted to one side.

_Was that funny? _asked Penny.

_I don't really know..._

She didn't really care, either. There, at the edge of the forest, they were _finally _all together again. Storm sat on her haunches with Ruby leaning into her side, and Fang and Pit and Specter surrounding her. Letting herself relax, just a little, before the next crisis struck.

Which was about fifteen seconds later, when Blake called for everyone's attention. "There's something I—_we—_need to say." She glanced sideways at Ilia, who winced.

"Well..." Ilia shot Blake a pleading look, and got an encouraging nod back.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "We know where a White Fang camp is," she said, cutting through the silent battle of wills. "At least, we know where one was a few days ago."

Winter's eyes narrowed. "And how _exactly _did you come by that information?"

"Um," said Blake, her ears folding back.

"Uh," Ilia said, and turned magenta.

Weiss reached out and squeezed Blake's hand. She took a deep breath and squeezed back. "We used to be in the White Fang."

There was a tense silence.

"I can't help but notice," Winter said, her voice very calm, "that I'm the only one surprised by this."

"The staff were aware," Professor Goodwitch confirmed.

Winter glared at Qrow.

"What?" Qrow asked. "It's news to me. Mostly. I kinda figured something was going on with that one." He jabbed a finger at Ilia, who turned slightly redder.

"I'm surprised," Tai offered helpfully.

Qrow thumped him on the back. "Of course you are."

"Hey!"

"And now you want us to trust you," Winter cut in.

Blake bristled. "It was good enough for Ozpin."

"Oh, _of course. _How could I—"

"Whitley got away!" Weiss blurted, stopping the argument cold before it could start.

Winter did a double take. "What?"

"He and Glacier got away." She glanced at Ilia. "I wouldn't know if she hadn't told me."

"If you were involved in—"

"Winter!" Weiss winced, apparently horrified that she'd just interrupted her sister—but Winter was shocked into silence. "You're not listening," she said, more quietly. "She didn't have to do that."

"That's hardly a reason to trust her."

"Well, that's not my only reason. Blake vouched for her."

Winter raised an eyebrow. "I see."

"I wouldn't want to risk going back in there," said Blake, "but this information won't stay good for long. And if we have a chance to shut down that lab..."

"Point taken," Winter said grudgingly. She turned a chilly stare on Ilia. "If this is a trap, I _will _leave you out here with the pit dragons."

"Well!" Tai clapped his hands together. "I guess that means we're splitting up again? Because I don't think walking there is a good idea."

Storm's head snapped up. They were going to be separated _again?_

_It isn't your fault, _Penny assured her, almost before she'd started to think it. _Grounding one of you was their plan from the start. You just had the bad luck to be the closest dragon at the time._

It helped. A little.

"I'm staying with the main group," Yang said, stepping a little closer to Ruby.

Weiss glanced at Blake. "I'm going," she decided.

Blake nodded. "Me too. And we'll need Ilia to show us where it is." Storm couldn't help noticing that Ilia didn't look happy about that—and Justice, the second-angriest fire dragon she'd ever met, was literally smoking.

Eventually, they decided that Steele, Quake, and the JNPR dragons would also fly out to the White Fang lab. There was a little hiccup, then, until Tai offered to bring Pyrrha on Quake. They stopped long enough to eat and sleep and, when they woke up again the next morning, they started the long walk to Vacuo.

* * *

Flying in a V was a lot harder than Steele made it look. Specter struggled to stay just behind him, instead of falling away or accidentally passing him. He was so focused on that, it took several tries for the older dragon to get his attention.

"What?" he blurted. "Sorry!"

Steele chuffed. "I was only asking if you were alright—though I think I already have my answer."

Specter's ears flattened. "Oh. Right."

"You've done well out here," Steele told him. "I'm impressed."

Specter squeaked, and his wings missed a beat. When he'd stabilized the slight wobble, he found that he couldn't look directly at Steele. He couldn't for the life of him understand what he_ meant._

"I didn't," he said miserably.

Another amused chuff. "Take the compliment, youngling."

"What happened to Storm... it was my—" He stopped, remembering what she'd told him. "Well, no, but it was—I did it. Sort of. I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it."

Steele went very quiet. Then, "Those devices."

"It was a prototype. Weiss smashed it with a rock." Specter wasn't sure why he was telling Steele that. Maybe he just didn't want to hear him go silent again. He stared fixedly at the horizon, tensing for the blow.

"In that case," Steele said, "you did _very _well out here."

Specter almost fell out of the sky in his shock. "But—"

"You aren't to blame for those _things." _Steele spat the last word like it was the vilest insult he knew. "But even after going through all that, you protected your rider from the pit dragons. I couldn't have done better myself."

"R-really?"

"Well, I would have flown better," Steele teased, "but that's only a matter of experience. You've escaped dragons much older than you, these past few days. With practice, it'll be a rare dragon that can catch you in the air."

Specter spent the rest of the flight practically glowing from the inside. There was still a part of him that was unconvinced, and probably would be for a long time—but it meant a lot to know that Steele wasn't disappointed in him.

Eventually it got dark, and they were forced to stop. Ilia said that they were only a few more hours away by air, and should reach the camp the next morning. Specter curled up with what felt like a nest of live snakes in his stomach. He still remembered the _last _time they'd had an actual fight with the White Fang. So did Pit, judging by his stony silence.

Weiss and Blake sat squished between them. Specter was starting to like this position—he loved sleeping with his rider next to him, but sometimes he worried she would get cold at night. With Blake and Pit there too, he knew she wouldn't be.

He was just about to close his eyes when he heard a noise somewhere behind him. His ear flicked, and he turned his head to find Justice staring at them.

No... _glaring. _So intensely that Specter half-expected sparks to fly from his eyes.

Specter bared his teeth and hissed. Justice turned away, with smoke curling between his teeth.

The nervous churning in his stomach started up again. Ilia seemed mostly alright—at least, Blake trusted her and she _had _warned them about Cinder. And she'd told Weiss about Whitley, which had made her a lot happier. Her dragon, on the other hand...

Specter let out a little sigh and tucked his head into Pit's side. Within minutes, he was fast asleep—and didn't notice a pair of scarlet eyes glowing resentfully in the dark.


	69. Meanwhile

**Hello folks! Here's another chapter starring a hunt, an unpleasant phone call, and Watts poking the dragon—metaphorically rather than literally, for a change.**

* * *

**69\. Meanwhile**

* * *

Sienna was almost as jumpy as Flux as she sat, feeling sick to her stomach as she waited for their hunters to return. The hybrid had given them no choice—they had to make it stop. She should have gone with them. It was her mess, as much as it was anyone's. But she knew she wouldn't be able to do what had to be done. So she sat there, disgusted with herself, trying not to hope that the hunters wouldn't find anything.

Beside her, the Lieutenant shifted slightly and let out a strained grunt. Gigas croaked and crawled into his lap, fluttering his tiny wings. The big man smiled at him and rubbed a pinky over his head, eliciting a deep purr.

His left arm hung uselessly. It was bandaged from shoulder to fingertips, and spots of red were already showing through. His palm was skinned raw—apparently he'd managed to grab the hybrid and had sorely regretted it. Otherwise, his injuries weren't serious. A few nasty scratches on his chest, red eyes and cracked skin, and a mottled bruise that covered most of his right side. Not the worst he'd ever been hurt... but close. She wasn't sure how much use he'd be able to get out of that arm once it was healed up, which could take months.

Somehow, she couldn't look at him without remembering the hybrid clinging to his forearm and staring eagerly into his mask, wanting to lick him but not quite sure how to go about it. And that made her think of Ilia, shining a light off her scroll for the hatchling to chase.

She still didn't know what had gone so wrong.

A whistle from the woods. Sienna shot to her feet. Flux squawked and wrapped her tail around her throat. A little tighter than necessary... and yet it felt strangely comforting. She petted the dragonet's head and hardly even winced when she was shocked.

Their hunters straggled out of the trees—several of them leaning heavily on others. One in a makeshift stretcher made from someone's tent. Sienna's throat tightened, but she managed to get out, "What happened?" There were only two uninjured hunters to stop and answer. The rest kept moving towards the camp's nurse.

They glanced at one another, clearly dreading whatever they were about to say. That didn't mean much. There was nothing they could tell her that would be good news.

"We found it," one grunted, "but it's quick. We got a few shots off, and I think Carmine nicked it's leg, but..." He trailed off. Shivered. "It's cat quiet, even when it's running. Kept popping out from behind us. Then it just vanished."

Sienna grimaced and squashed down the little flare of hope that stirred in her chest. "Well we can't just _leave _her out there. She's obviously capable of following us when we move."

"She can probably smell us," said a voice from behind her. Sienna whirled to face Hazel, her ears flattening against her skull.

_"Thank _you," she snarled, "for that _useful contribution."_

Hazel shrugged and walked away. Sienna glared at his back—she'd wanted to send Brand after the hybrid, but the dragon hadn't wanted to go. Hazel hadn't even tried to get him to obey.

And yet, somehow, the killer hybrid wasn't even their only problem. They needed to move, _soon—_it was only a matter of time before Ilia reached Vacuo, and once she did their position could easily be compromised. But if they didn't lose the hybrid before then, they'd be stuck in the same situation. If they could only injure her enough so that she couldn't follow...

But the hunters had failed. The Lieutenant was out of commission until further notice. Justice was gone, and Flux and Gigas were only babies. That left Harbinger. She was loathe to risk him if she could avoid it, and using him might cause problems with the Albains later... but there was no helping it.

She found Corsac and said, without preamble, "Do it."

* * *

Harbinger could smell her.

He walked slowly, swinging his head from side to side, more than half-hoping he would lose the trail. He didn't.

Eventually he came to a particularly dark patch of forest and stopped. Sniffed. Felt a pang as the familiar scent of sun-baked grass filled his nose. Justice had said she was a traitor, but now he'd run away too. Were they all traitors, then? He didn't want to be, but it was getting so hard to be good.

Harbinger smothered a whimper and padded in a slow circle, weaving between the trees. He still couldn't see her, but he knew she was here. A little shiver went down his spine. His riders thought he could beat her in a fight, but she'd hurt the Lieutenant, and Harbinger hadn't even thought he _could _bleed. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. She'd had very sharp claws, even fresh out of the egg.

Finally he stopped, right in the place where the smell was strongest, and looked up.

She crouched in the upper boughs of an oak tree, her claws digging into the bark, her eyes shining in the shadows. Several seconds passed, with neither of them speaking. Harbinger didn't dare—he had the horrible feeling that if he did, the fight would start.

Harbinger wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. He hadn't seen her since she'd vanished—he realized suddenly that he hadn't believed it, before, hadn't thought that tiny little creature could have attacked the Lieutenant. Had assumed that something had happened to her that meant she _couldn't _come back to Sienna.

"You attack," she said. Not a question. The scales on her left hind leg were red. Harbinger's ears drooped with shame.

"I have to."

She hissed, _"No."_

Harbinger kneaded the ground with his forepaws. His whole body trembled under her stare, as he tried to make himself _move._ She wasn't really his sister—they weren't bonded, there was nothing stopping him, except that he didn't want to. And that didn't matter, because his riders needed him to do it. He _had _to.

It was as if she read his mind. "You know," she said, her voice rasping like dead leaves. "You choose. I blame."

_Choose._

Panic welled up. He didn't know what he was supposed to be choosing—didn't know, even though he could sense it like something looming behind him, right there if he only turned his head to look. Something so horrible and wrong that seeing it would ruin him. So he turned tail and _ran, _pelting through the forest like a horde of furious Grimm was chasing him, and told himself that this was the choice she meant.

* * *

"I'm calling it."

Cinder's head snapped around. When she spoke, her voice was deadly quiet. "I'm sorry Arthur... what did you just say to me? I must not have heard correctly."

Mercury didn't even dare _breathe._ Beside him, Emerald went just as deadly still, her eyes trained unblinkingly on Cinder. The way her shoulders tensed sent his heart racing—she was better at reading Cinder's moods than he was. This might be the explosion.

Watts, apparently unconcerned, waved a hand. "They have reinforcements. Altas military, and a couple old Riders. I might still be able to pick off a few of them, but what would really be the point? I couldn't kill all four full-grown dragons, even if I still had the big one."

Cinder gave him a look so venomous that Mercury was sure she was about to attack Watts, usefulness or no—but Emerald relaxed. "Yes," she gritted out. "The big one. Where is he now, exactly?"

"Hard to say, considering my device was melted into oblivion," Watts said dryly. "A vulnerability I'll have to correct in future... but I digress. I did look for the creature, and last I saw it was about sixty miles northwest of us."

"Why aren't you tailing him?" Cinder demanded.

"Because it kept attacking every dragon it could see." Watts made a face. "I doubt it will come back here. It was moving farther away, after all. And if it does, I have a replacement device ready."

Rudder whimpered and tried to hide under Mercury's arm, pushing his face into his side. He winced—the last thing he wanted right now was to attract Cinder's attention—but she ignored him. He patted the dragon's head soothingly.

"Fine, then," Cinder snapped. "What about the hybrids? How many eggs do you have for me?"

"Two that might be viable," Watts said. Nonchalant. Still pretending not to notice that Cinder was holding herself back from killing him by sheer force of will.

"I need more. There are still Riders waiting. At least one earth and fire, and one that _isn't _fire and lightning."

"Are you sure you don't want—"

_"Don't. _Finish that sentence."

Watts shrugged, as if it was no real concern of his. "Very well. If you'd rather trust those Riders..."

At that, Cinder actually smiled. "They're mine," she said, with utter certainty. "Now, and always. If you'd ever had a dragon, you'd understand."

"I'm sure I would," Watts replied. His tone suggested that he highly doubted it, but thought it best to humor her.

Mercury knew a thing or two about the fine art of irritating people—which meant he had a carefully honed sense of when you needed to stop before you got dead. He'd never met anyone who was willing to try it on _Cinder._

She swept out of the room. Strike followed, after a last fiery glare. Emerald jumped to her feet and jogged after them. That meant Mercury had to follow—Rudder hated to be in the same room as the doctor without Jade or Strike there too.

Cinder stopped in the middle of Watts' compound, her mouth set in a grimace. "We're going to lose the students." Mercury wasn't sure it would be safe to agree, so he said nothing.

"More of our loyal riders will be arriving shortly. You two will need to handle supply runs until a few of them can fly. What Watts has stored up here will go quickly with this many people." They nodded. She stood in silence for a moment, radiating anger and frustration, then strode away without another word.

Mercury grimaced at the thought of more _loyal _riders. Tyrian had been bad enough. There was still only a handful of them, living in the cabin the students had vacated, all with baby hybrids clinging to their shoulders. All of them looked at Cinder with the same slavish devotion that frustrated him so much in Emerald.

They were also important to Cinder's cause. Important in the sense that without them, there was no question of her winning against the Council. Even with them...

The students wouldn't stick around for long. They'd lose _dozens _of dragons, and be left with... what? Less than ten? There weren't many riders who would jump to defend the Council, but there were enough that they would be completely outnumbered, even without taking the regular soldiers into account.

She was losing. _They _were losing.

He glanced sideways at Emerald. Abandoned the thought of telling her this before it even fully formed. He'd be wasting his breath.

Maybe he and Rudder could run, like Roman and Neo. They wouldn't have the protection of being in a big group, though... and he didn't fancy the thought of being hunted through the forest by Strike and an army of pit dragons.

So he could wait for an opportunity. The next mission, maybe. He _had _to get out of here before he got himself and Rudder killed.

Another glance at Emerald. She didn't notice, but Jade picked up her head and met his eyes with a strangely knowing look. He almost felt bad for her—she was stuck here, no matter what she wanted to do. It wasn't like she could just up and abandon Emerald, no matter how damn _stubborn _she was being.

..._Fuck._

* * *

James had a lot to do. He needed to talk to his students, figure out which ones were staying and which ones he would be sending home. Then he had to make sure the Dragonry's defenses were as strong as he could make them, and assign people to keep an eye out during the night—he hadn't forgotten what had happen at Beacon. And, of course, he had to make sure that he actually _had _the ace up his sleeve that his entire plan was resting on.

Instead, he found himself sitting at his console. Staring blankly at the screen. Waiting for a call.

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Still no word from Winter, but that wasn't surprising. She and the students were in the middle of a dead zone. He'd have to leave them out of his plans for now... but he wasn't sure there would be much of a defense without them. Even if every single one of his students decided to stay—which was extremely unlikely, since none of them had dragons with defects that would be threatened by the Council—Winter's reinforcements would include _fifteen _dragons, four of them fully grown adults. Enough to make the Council think twice about attacking them directly.

But she wasn't going to call just because he stared at the console longer. Another massage at the bridge of his nose, as he tried to gather his thoughts. Start with the defenses. Most were automated, but if they were expecting an attack they should—

A ping came from his console, and his eyes snapped open. A call. Not from Winter—it was them.

He ran a hand through his hair in a half-hearted attempt to look a bit more presentable, fixed on a smile, and accepted the call. Nine familiar silhouettes appeared on his screen.

"General Ironwood," said the figure in the center. Gosling was polite as always, even though she must have guessed by now that he was moving against them.

"Councilors."

Several of them began to talk at once—Gosling cut through them, and they went silent. "We have sent six Riders to Atlas Dragonry, for your students' protection," she said. "They should arrive within the next four hours.

James stiffened. That was much too soon. If he could just keep them out until Winter returned... but if they realized he was stalling, they could easily invade Atlas as they had Beacon. Then again, as long as they thought he was grasping at straws, they'd be willing to let him delay here and there. They still thought time was on their side—the longer it took for the confrontation to happen, the more time they would have to build a legal case against him, and the better they'd be able to sell all this to the public.

"I see," he said, letting them see his nerves. "Unfortunately, I haven't received your warrant yet. I cannot allow any riders onto the grounds without one. Policy, you understand."

"Policy says no such _thing," _Pepon spat. "James, do you have any _idea—"_

The smallest of the silhouettes stirred. Pepon fell silent immediately, as the oldest member of the council, Councilman Aegolius, spoke. "I believe the law requires that students be given twenty-four hours notice," he said. "As it is currently eight twenty-six, those Riders will not legally be allowed to enter when they arrive."

There was a pause. James had to fight to keep the relief off his face—Aegolius often played devil's advocate, but he hadn't been sure he'd rise to the bait.

"We _would _have contacted you earlier," Pepon gritted out. "But there was some _difficulty _in reaching a consensus on who—"

Councilwoman Gosling cleared her throat. "Very well. They will begin patrolling the grounds at eight twenty-six tomorrow."

James grimaced apologetically. "Unfortunately, the curfew for my first-year students has now passed. I won't be able to inform them until tomorrow morning." His students didn't _have _a curfew, but the Council wouldn't have that information.

Aegolius cleared his throat. "While that is unfortunate," he said, "legally speaking, the purpose of giving students twenty-four hours is to ensure that they will have time to see the notice before changes go into effect. We will be seeing you again at—" he paused, probably glancing at the clock, "—eight twenty-eight tomorrow evening."

Ironwood didn't doubt they'd be counting the seconds.

He sent the message the Council was waiting for. Then he set off the fire alarm and strode out into the courtyard. His students came shuffling out of the dorms, looking around in some confusion for the smoke.

"The Council would like me to inform you that several of their riders will be arriving at this Dragonry tomorrow evening," he told them. He watched their faces, his stomach tightening into a hard knot as he tried to guess which way they would fall. Muttering started near the back of the small crowd.

James squared his shoulders. "There are other demands that they expect to be met by that time. Locked shutters on the barns. Tracking devices implanted in every dragon."

The whispering grew louder, and took on a harsher tone.

"Unfortunately, these changes would be extremely detrimental to the health and safety of our dragons." James caught a few of the students raising skeptical eyebrows. He'd be losing those, then. "As such, I will not be meeting them."

Dead silence.

He allowed himself a smile. "Anyone who wishes to leave, should do so now. There is no shame in abstaining. I suspect someone will be able to find you a place in Beacon Dragonry."

The eyebrow-raisers were first to go. More followed. Some shot him disgusted looks—others just looked frightened. When they had all swarmed towards the dormitories to collect their things, less than a quarter remained standing in the courtyard. It was better than James had expected.

He smiled at them, memorizing faces. Caught a flash of bright color that he recognized as Neon, and her teammate Flynt beside her. "You will _not _be fighting," he told them. Then, over a few protests, "I will assign all of you roles in defending the Dragonry. When they _do _arrive, I will do the talking. We will, as a group, peacefully refuse to allow them inside."

Neon raised her hand. "Yeah," she said, very loudly, before he could call on her. "Because that worked _super _well at Beacon."

"We'll have something Beacon didn't."

"What?" She looked around. "Half as many people?"

James looked her dead in the eyes, allowing the vicious smirk he'd been holding back to show. "The media," he said. "An _army _of them."


	70. Loyalty

**Hello, and happy Friday! Here's another chapter, this time starring protective Justice, Whitley's dilemma, and Glacier's song.**

* * *

**70\. Loyalty**

* * *

They were so close to the camp now that Justice could smell the cookfires. He seethed silently as Ilia followed a few steps behind Blake, like there was some kind of invisible tether between them. Like Blake had ever done anything except leave.

Smoke mixed with his breath. Specter noticed, and shot him a suspicious glare. He glared right back. A puny ice dragon wasn't going to scare him—_she'd _been scarier when she was half his size.

Specter's whistle made Weiss, Blake, and Ilia look around. His rider shot him a pleading look. Justice looked away, pointedly ignoring her. She'd explained that they wanted to shut down the lab. After she'd explained to him how important it was. It _had _to be there, or else nothing would ever get better! Now they wanted to destroy it, and lose all the ground they'd gained, and someday someone else would have to start all over. There would be another lab, and it wouldn't have any of the formulas they'd used to make Flux and Gigas and Harbinger. Everything would just be worse.

They _did _need it, whatever Blake said. Ilia had told him so, and she couldn't have been wrong. Not about that.

Twigs snapped off to their left. Justice and Ilia jumped—for an instant they were both thinking exactly the same thing, and half-expecting to see yellow eyes in the gloom. But it was only a deer. His eyes rolled with terror when he realized how many dragons had managed to sneak up on him, and he bolted into the forest without a backward glance.

"It's just up ahead," Ilia said, a while later. She kept her voice low. So did Blake, when she passed the message on to Winter.

"Students, stay behind us," Winter ordered, gesturing for them to form up behind her and Tai. "Ilia, stay near the front to show us the way."

Justice bristled. A _Schnee _was giving orders to his rider. Worse, Ilia was _following _them. He growled low in his throat, earning him an anxious hiss to quiet down. His ears went back.

"They don't have many dragons, do they?" Specter asked, sounding a little anxious. "I don't feel like getting chased again."

Pit flicked his tail. "They have Brand, but Steele and Quake can take him."

Justice bared his teeth at that. As if a lazy old lizard and a spoiled designer dragon could beat _Brand._ But his tail drooped with worry. That would definitely have been true a year ago—he'd heard stories of how Brand had been before they killed his rider. And he'd been getting better, slowly, so that he didn't look half-starved anymore. He still wasn't as strong as he used to be.

But the last straw was when Weiss leaned close to Blake and muttered, "What are we going to do about the hybrids?"

He stopped walking. It took Ilia a second to notice, and when she did, she did a double-take. "Justice?" she whispered. "Come on."

She'd told them. _She'd told them._

They would _not _touch the little ones. Justice rose up onto his hind legs, sucked in a breath, and let loose a bellow that shook his entire body. Steele pounced on him, much too late. By the time the ice dragon knocked the wind out of him and pinned him down, he could already hear Brand's answering roar in the distance.

* * *

Brand hadn't thought he'd ever hear that voice again. He stood up, abandoning the patch of sunlight he'd been lounging in, and answered the call. Trees shook, birds took to the air in a panic, and Hazel leaped to his feet.

"Saddle," he blurted, and sprinted off to find it. Brand galloped towards the noise—Hazel would catch up.

Harbinger bolted out of his little pen behind the Albains' tent. He was already saddled, with Corsac on his back. He was still too small to fly like that, but he _could _run, and they'd need all the help they could get.

Hazel met him at the edge of the woods. There'd been no more sound from Justice, and Brand was itching to charge in after him—but they had no idea what was out there. It could be anything from a Flight Squad, to a horde of Grimm, to Sienna's angry youngling. So he waited, shifting impatiently from foot to foot, while Hazel tightened the straps on his saddle and hoisted himself onto his back.

Familiar weight settled on top of him. He felt a horrible mix of fear and longing stir in the pit of his stomach, and shook it off. Then he plunged into the woods.

They were close. He burst out of a knot of trees, sending several of them toppling in his wake, and found Justice pinned to the ground by a silver ice dragon. He squirmed and struggled, but the enemy dragon had put a paw down on his jaws, holding them shut. The pale head turned, revealing deep blue eyes.

Brand's howl of challenge shook the ground again. He coiled up, ready to pounce, his teeth bared and aimed at the enemy's throat—and a smaller figure jumped in front of him. His roar turned into a choked yelp, his eyes widening at the sight of Blake.

"Brand!" Hazel shouted.

He balked and backed up a step. "Nno hurt," he said, his ears going back.

_He doesn't understand—she's a friend, why is his rider so angry?_

"No," Hazel agreed. "Just keep them away from the camp."

The horrible knot in his chest eased. Brand coiled up, ready to jump over her. Before he could move, Pit reached out and snatched her off the ground, barking an admonishment. The silver ice dragon's rider—one of _them, _and not the nice one who sang—shouted, "Go!" She gestured with one hand, and Pit darted forward, aiming to run past him and into the camp.

Brand pounced, just as the speckles on Pit's scales glowed a bright silver. The power of his leap sent him sailing straight over the other dragon's head with a startled yelp.

Pit bolted past them into the woods. Specter and the singing Schnee followed right behind them, along with four humans and three dragons that Brand didn't recognize. Harbinger jumped into their midst, and the ground under their feet melted into thick, sticky mud. The last dragon, an earth dragon that was smaller than the others, tackled him and Corsac, giving the rest time to run past him.

Brand collided with a tree. It went down, as did two more behind it, and he landed on his side with his shoulder aching. He almost rolled to his feet before he remembered that Hazel was on his back, and got up without squishing him.

He tried to pursue the dragons that were headed for the camp, but a big earth dragon got in his way. "I heard about you," he said, in a deep rumble. "Sorry, but you can't attack the little ones."

Brand huffed. _"You_ came _here," _he grumbled. He glanced around, his shoulders tensing as he realized just how outnumbered they were. He lunged, managing this time to reach the big ice dragon and knock him away from Justice.

"Go!" he hissed, when it looked like he was going to stay and fight. "Protect the camp!"

Justice ran past him. Brand sank into a crouch, his heart pounding in his chest, feeling wonderfully alive. His roar of challenge shook the trees.

* * *

He was going north. North, not home.

Fear and excitement mixed in Glacier's belly, until he was as shaky and weak as if he'd eaten a sleepy meal. What if the small Jacques went home? Could he follow? A shudder went through him, making the strange wind dragon stare. He hissed at her so she would stop.

They swam again. It was better now that he was used to it, and the water felt nicely cool on his scales. He ducked underwater to savor it. When he came back up again, he heard the small one coughing and spluttering and felt a twinge of guilt. _Oops._

The wind dragon was looking at him again. He ignored her, swimming with his head half-underwater, though being careful now to make sure that his back stayed close to the surface. A while later they reached land, and set off at a brisk trot. Glacier wasn't sure why, but it was easier than it had been—as if there was more air in the world these days.

He was so busy savoring the feeling of earth and moss under his paws that he didn't notice the wind dragon keeping pace with him. When he did, he moved a little farther away from her. She didn't try to close the distance. Instead, she spoke.

"I'm looking for my Rider's daughter."

Glacier paused for a moment to pant. There was a strange ache in his chest—probably from all the running. The wind dragon shuffled her paws a bit awkwardly. Waiting for him to say something. He didn't want to, so he started sniffing a clump of flowers.

"I... lost..." A small, pained whine. "I mean... I know how it feels. How important it is to protect their young."

He froze, as what she'd said sank in. On his back, the small Jacques felt him tense and sat up very straight. "No," he said, still addressing the flowers. "Jacques is home. Home is bad."

"Oh." She was so taken aback, she actually backed away a few paces. Glacier picked his head up and started walking again. Ahead of him, Ragnar noticed and did the same. The wind dragon stayed at his side.

"I'm sorry," she said, after a long while. "I thought..."

More silence.

Glacier wanted to sing, but he didn't want to do it in front of the other dragons, or the little human Oscar. So he whistled tunelessly, and occasionally twisted his head around to nuzzle against the little one's chest.

"I don't understand," the wind dragon admitted, a while later. "Or... not about wanting to stay away. But I think I do understand about him." She pointed her nose towards the small Jacques. "They smell like their parents." A frustrated huff. "That's not all of it, but I don't know how to..."

"Small one is good."

Her ears drooped. "Yes. Very good."

They paddled across a small stream, then waded through a vast field full of grasses that came almost to Glacier's shoulder. He couldn't stop sneezing, and was glad when they returned to the cool forest. All the while, the wind dragon watched him.

"Have you talked to him?" she asked, a while later.

Glacier tilted his head to one side.

"In their language, I mean."

He flicked his tail. "Don't know many words."

"I think you should try." His hackles rose, and she bowed her head in apology. "You don't have to. It's just that you both seem lonely." She looked at the sky, the trees, the leaf-strewn ground—anywhere but at him. "It helps to feel closer to them."

Glacier didn't speak again for the rest of the day. He watched the sun go down, turning the sky a thousand bright colors, drinking in the sight that had been hidden behind white walls for years. It still _hurt._ He'd thought he would have found the other small ones by now. He'd thought it wouldn't hurt anymore.

* * *

Somehow, even after spending all this time with Ragnar, meeting several fellow humans, and picking up an extra dragon—for _some _reason—Whitley still had no idea what was going on. He thought Glacier probably did. At least, it looked like he was talking to the wind dragon, Tempest.

Really, Whitley was so used to being confused at this point that he was just glad he'd overheard one of the teenagers say her name. At least he wouldn't have to resort to calling her Windy.

They were going north, now, which meant they were getting closer to where he wanted to go. Somehow this wasn't reassuring. He wouldn't even know where to begin explaining about Oscar and Ragnar to Father, and Glacier...

Glacier wasn't his. Surely he'd want to go back to his real Rider once they were in Atlas.

As the evening faded into twilight, he started to suspect the dragon was thinking the same thing. Glacier kept staring at him, even more intensely than usual, and had started whistling. Not his usual song—Whitley got the sense that he was making it up as he went along, and the result sounded an awful lot like wind chimes. _Eerie _wind chimes.

He was probably planning a return to Atlas. Whitley felt a strange, hot feeling in the pit of his stomach. Frustration, maybe, because he'd _tried _to tell Glacier where it was when they first got away from the White Fang. If the stupid old lizard wanted to go back, all he had to do was _listen._

But now he was following Ragnar, or maybe Tempest—it wasn't clear who was leading the group, at the moment—and he was going north. Maybe it was something else, something in the upper part of Vale. Or maybe he had finally figured out how to get back, and they'd be in the manor again in a few weeks. Father would have replaced Rusty with a new stable hand. Probably a strict one that wouldn't let him anywhere near the barns without permission.

Whitley drew Rusty's hood over his head and tucked his knees against his chest. He was still slightly damp from Glacier's swim earlier, which left the jacket musty-smelling, but still very warm.

"Have I told you about the time our farm got hit by a tornado?" Oscar asked.

Whitley blinked, startled. He'd just started to wish for a distraction. Despite the rocky start, Oscar was getting so good at telling when he wanted to talk that it was almost creepy.

They spent the next hour or so swapping stories. Whitley had learned to be careful which ones he told—sometimes what he thought was a funny anecdote would make Oscar go very quiet for a few minutes, before the conversation started back up again.

It was decidedly odd, Whitley mused, as he tried not to laugh at a corny joke. He was used to getting sick of other people's company, but it had never happened in reverse like this before. With every day that passed, he found having Oscar and Ragnar around grew less and less grating.

Lately, he'd been getting strange lumps in his throat at unpredictable times. As much as it usually didn't _feel _like it, they were on a journey with a destination—or, at least, Ragnar was. Even if they weren't going to the Schnee manor, eventually they would get _somewhere, _and there would be no need for them to travel together anymore.

Whitley's laugh died. He tried to keep up the conversation, but Oscar noticed his mood and let it trail off into a comfortable silence. More heat in the pit of his stomach. He scowled down at his own boots, wishing Glacier had never run off towards Beacon. If the dragon had just listened to him from the start, they would already be in Atlas, and he'd never have realized how much he didn't want to go back.

Night fell. As usual, Ragnar lay on his side with one wing splayed out across the forest floor like a gigantic sail. Oscar slept next to his stomach, a position Whitley was sometimes slightly jealous of when it got cold and windy, like tonight. Tempest settled down on her belly, her hind legs tucked under herself, her head resting on her paws.

Glacier did not take up his usual position, curled up in a ball with Whitley and his blanket tucked between his stomach and his forelegs. Instead he picked him up by his hood and padded off into the woods. Ragnar stirred, lifting his head and rumbling a question. Glacier whistled his answer. Whatever it was, the old earth dragon closed his eyes again, apparently satisfied.

It was very dark under the trees. Glacier's pale scales took on an unearthly glow in what little moonlight filtered through the branches. He didn't go very far—and when he sat down and began to sing, Whitley realized that he'd wanted to be out of earshot.

"You didn't have to drag me along," he said, but he didn't go back to the others. Instead he sat with his back to Glacier's chest, where he could feel the music as much as he heard it. A breeze picked up, blowing a chill right through Rusty's jacket. His pants were still damp.

It suited the song, somehow. The cold, and the slightly brittle smell in the air—a first whiff of the coming autumn. Whitley could almost see the northern lights when he closed his eyes, framed by his bedroom window. Shutters thrown wide, curtains stirring in a frozen wind.

He'd heard it before. Sometime, somewhere, and he'd felt just like this. Right on the cusp of something, bracing for the moment when it was snatched away.

Glacier reached the spot where he always faltered. A run of notes tumbled over one another like a waterfall—and in a flash, Whitley remembered. He'd been very small, too young to start lessons. Mother was humming it while she arranged flowers in a vase. He'd asked what it was called, and the vase had slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor.

A ringing silence followed. Glacier whined softly and pressed his nose against Whitley's cheek. He shivered again, and hair rose on the back of his neck. One deep blue eye was fixed on him, just like it had from behind the steel grate, what felt like a lifetime ago.

Glacier hissed—but it wasn't his usual signal of displeasure. Whitley's mouth fell open as he recognized the beginning of a word, seconds before the dragon finally managed to get it out.

"Sssmall," he said, and touched the tip of his nose to Whitley's forehead.

Whitley threw himself at the dragon, wrapping both arms around his neck and burying his face in his cool scales. A wing folded over him. He felt very small, then—small and terrified of everything he now had to lose.


	71. The Raid

**'Lo all. This chapter, a fight that should be easy turns out to be surprisingly complicated.**

* * *

**71\. The Raid**

* * *

The camp was almost the same. Blake hadn't realized it would hit her so hard. Different woods, different tents in different places... familiar faces stumbling around and fumbling to put on masks. Many of them hoisted supplies over their shoulders and sprinted towards the woods.

Pit made to chase after them, but skidded to a stop when a looming figure stepped into their path. Blake's heart sank. The Lieutenant was as massive as ever, his hand wrapped around the handle of his brutal sword. He'd been their third most dangerous member, after Adam and Brand. But he was unsteady on his feet, his skin was cracked and scaly, and his left arm was bound tightly to his chest with stained bandages.

There was an instant where she was relieved. This would be an easy fight, with four dragons against him.

Then Justice burst from the woods behind them. Ilia clung to his back and shouted, _"No!"_ with no effect. A tiny indigo streak bolted out of a nearby tent, making a noise like an angry foghorn. Something grey and gold pelted up a small heap of crates and launched itself into the air.

The Lieutenant's sword revved. Pit faltered in mid-run, alarmed by the noise. The indigo streak resolved itself into a dragonet that snarled at the intruders. It was bulky, with tiny wings and a blocky head that reminded her of...

Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth to shout a warning, but before she had the chance, pink and gold spots on the dragon's back began to glow.

Chaos erupted. Crates, cooking pots, tent pegs, and pebbles soared into the air and whipped around the Lieutenant like a miniature tornado. Blake threw her arm over her face to protect her eyes. An ominous whistling was her only warning before something collided with her head, filling her mouth with the taste of copper and making every muscle in her body tense painfully.

"Blake!"

She tried to slap at whatever was attacking her, but her arm wouldn't move from where it was clamped over her eyes—which turned out to be a good thing. Static crackled, and needle-sharp claws raked across her wrist.

The weight lifted. She could finally unclench her jaw and open her eyes. Pit was mid-rear. The world, and several rusty nails, whirled sickeningly around her. The Lieutenant was approaching, his arm out to one side, ready to strike.

Blake's shout was wordless, but Pit seemed to understand her anyway. He leaped forward, batting the Lieutenant aside. He hit the dirt, bad-shoulder first, and swore at the top of his lungs. The indigo dragonet launched itself at them with a roar that sounded like it had come from something ten times its size, as more random objects whipped themselves into the air and hurled themselves directly at her head. Pit's freckles glowed silver, and every single one of them changed direction in mid-air and embedded themselves in the surrounding tents. Several crates smashed, spilling odds and ends all over the ground.

The other dragonet flew in circles, wailing at the top of its lungs and dive-bombing Weiss and Specter. Justice charged Ao Guang and Freya while Ilia yanked uselessly on the reins. All three enemy dragons ignored Pyrrha—but the few White Fang members who weren't busy grabbing everything in reach and running for the hills were taking aim at her. Most of them had pistols, which would be next to useless against dragons but _plenty _effective against a single human. One fumbled frantically with a rifle, trying to load it with shaking hands.

_Him first, while the Lieutenant is down._ Blake bent low against Pit's back, so that she wouldn't be hit by any stray bullets, and pointed. They charged, and members of the Fang screamed and dove out of the way as they approached. Brand had long since given them a healthy respect for angry dragons.

Rifle raised the gun just as they were nearly on him. Pit batted it out of his hands, sending it spinning into a pile of crates and knocking him onto his back. He glowed again, and the rifle shot into the air and sailed out over the trees. Someone might find it, eventually, but it would be no help in this fight.

_"You."_

Blake stiffened. Slowly, she turned to find another familiar face. Sienna, who Ilia had told her was helping to lead the White Fang now that Adam was gone.

She groped for something to say—but Sienna didn't wait for a response. She whistled, and the wheeling grey and gold dragon made a beeline for the pair of them. Blake ducked its first dive, and felt her hair stand on end.

_Why?_ Sienna hadn't needed to show herself. Blake glanced frantically around, and her eyes fell on a tent that was much larger than the others. Her stomach flipped—it was the same one Adam had used. The lab.

"Pit!" she shouted, jabbing a finger towards it. "That way!"

Sienna swore and shouted for the Lieutenant. He was on his knees, supporting himself with one hand, struggling to get to his feet. The indigo dragonet barked and darted towards them, while the grey-gold one came in for another pass. They bolted through the tent flap. Beyond it was a room full of incubators, only about half of them housing an egg. Shattered eggshells littered the floor. Pit whimpered.

Blake leaped off his back and sprinted over to the injectors. "Can you break these?"

He could, and did. More of the Fang streamed into the room, holding pistols. Pit stepped in front of her, grunting slightly when a shot hit him.

Nothing else she could do in a hurry, not without destroying the eggs. She searched for a back way, and found nothing. Panic rose up in her chest—until there was a high-pitched whistle from outside, and Specter charged through the open flap. He toppled most of the White Fang in the room like bowling pins, and menaced a few more with clouds of silver mist. Those that were left raised their guns towards Weiss, and Pit pounced on them.

When Blake looked for Sienna, she and her hatchling were already gone.

* * *

_"Go away!" _the little hatchling roared, barreling into Freya's side. She hardly even felt the impact, but the cloud of random objects was more of a problem. With Pit gone off to handle the ones with guns, there was no one to stop them from flying in every direction.

Freya hadn't expected a fight with a baby to be this difficult.

Gently, she pinned the indigo dragonet under one of her paws. She barked and wriggled, her stubby tail thrashing in the dirt... but she wasn't big or strong enough to escape. This didn't stop the hail of nails, wooden splinters, and spent bullets. If anything, it only got worse as the hatchling concentrated all her energy on aiming them at their riders.

A shadow darted out from one of the tents and raced towards the woods. The flying hatchling followed a few feet above it, until the fleeing rider pointed towards where Justice and Ao Guang were brawling. It wheeled towards them. Freya grabbed the indigo hatchling by the scruff and dragged it along as she went to help Guang.

"The rider!" Ren called out, pointing at the retreating figure. It passed out of the shadow of a tent, and Freya caught a glimpse of a woman, maskless, with a pair of tiger's ears. Pyrrha glanced up at the dragonet, which was obeying the order to attack Ren and Guang, and bolted after the rider.

Nora tensed. "Pyrrha, wait!"

Freya growled. It came out muffled through the protesting hatchling, and she gave her a gentle but stern shake, trying to get her to stop using her powers. No luck. So Freya kept holding her as she broke into a run and leaped over her brother. Her wings flared, and she caught the flying hatchling neatly between her front paws and bore him to the ground.

He _hurt. _She winced as sparks flew from his horns, spines, and tail. Growling at him to stop didn't help—she wasn't even sure he could if he'd wanted to.

Guang and Justice were at a stalemate. Ilia was fighting with the reins, but it wasn't doing much. Mostly they just batted at each other, with Justice only breathing fire when he thought he wouldn't hit any of the flammable tents around them. But when he saw her with one hatchling in her teeth and another pinned under her paws, he let out an enraged roar. In one motion he tore himself free of Guang and came charging towards her.

Freya's ears went back. She braced for the impact, but Guang slammed into Justice's side before he got to her. They rolled over one another. Ilia almost ended up underneath Justice, but he twisted to one side to keep her out of the way. That let Guang pin him to the ground. He bucked and struggled, but couldn't dislodge him without leaning too much of his weight on his rider.

She relaxed, just a hair. And, in the same instant, there was movement from the ground. The big man had finally gotten to his his feet. He stood unsteadily, breathing hard, the sword in his hand making a horrible grinding noise. It pointed towards the ground as he struggled to lift it, but step by step, he approached Freya and her two tiny captives.

Her muffled bark of alarm caught Guang's attention, but he couldn't help without letting Justice up again. Freya tensed, readying herself to leap out of the way—but before she had the chance, Nora hurled a tent peg at his head. He dodged it, swayed in place, and collapsed onto his back.

There was a brief silence. Then the indigo hatchling started bawling at the top of her lungs, and struggling so hard that she was in danger of cutting herself on Freya's teeth.

Pausing just long enough to secure the other hatchling under one paw, Freya limped over so that the dragonet could get a good look at her rider. It seemed like he'd passed out—she was honestly kind of surprised he'd been standing up to start with. His arm looked _bad._

"See?" Freya said, around the hatchling she carried in her mouth. "He's okay, he's breathing. He really shouldn't be fighting like this, though." Neither should these little ones. Why hadn't their riders run away with them when they heard Justice roaring?

The hatchling let out an enraged twang and started trying to claw at her—which, since she was facing the wrong way, mostly made it look like she was doing a frantic doggy-paddle in midair. Freya let out a little sigh that turned into a yelp when the other dragonet shocked her again.

* * *

There were too many of them.

Harbinger landed hard on his back paws as the younger earth dragon wrestled him towards the ground. His tail lashed back and forth, splattering mud everywhere. Corsac shouted another command, to _bite, _but she was pushing his head to one side and he couldn't follow it. He whined and scrabbled in the mud, then tugged at it. It responded, and an instant later she was covered from head to toe—including her eyes.

She yelped in surprise and pain and swiped at him with one paw. Her claws weren't extended, but she was bigger than he was and the attack knocked him onto his side.

"Come on!" Corsac snarled. "Get up!"

Harbinger struggled to his feet. The big earth dragon had jumped forward to protect the smaller one while she wiped the mud out of her eyes. His huge paws smashed against the ground, and it seemed to ripple. Harbinger stumbled but didn't quite fall. He darted forward, slipping under the bigger dragon's tail so that he could get closer to Brand.

This turned out to be a mistake. The ice dragon fighting him noticed Harbinger near his feet and whipped his tail at him. It hit his shoulder, launched him into the air, and sent him skidding into a tree. He lay there for a moment, stunned, bleeding from several long cuts.

"Get _up!"_

Harbinger managed to stand, even though it hurt and his injured foreleg was shaky. Brand smelled the blood and turned his head. "Nuff," he barked.

Hazel nodded agreement and patted his neck.

Brand slammed into the ice dragon shoulder first. He staggered slightly, raised his claws to attack back—but they hit only empty air as the fire dragon bolted towards Harbinger. "Come on," he said, nudging him along with his nose. "We've bought as much time as we can."

He hesitated. Corsac didn't want him to go—and Brand was fine! He could keep fighting if it weren't for Harbinger. And what if these humans hurt Fennec, or one of the dragonets? It would be all his fault!

"Now!" Brand roared. The ice dragon streaked towards them, then reared up as a blast of fire blocked his path. There wasn't any other option—Harbinger sprinted after the older dragon, limping badly, desperately hoping that _something _else would interfere with the invading humans.

* * *

_Idiot._

Sienna leaped over a tangle of brambles, stumbled, and kept on sprinting through the forest, cursing herself all the while. Foolish to think she could keep Blake _and _a year-old dragon away from the lab, with or without Flux.

She risked a glance over her shoulder and swore under her breath. The redhead hadn't fallen behind like she'd expected—if anything, she seemed to be gaining on her. If she hadn't told Flux to stay behind... well, no. If she'd done that, she might be dealing with one or more _dragons _chasing her. A single human, she could handle.

There was a knife in her boot. She didn't carry a pistol—she was a decent shot, but only decent, and they didn't have enough of them to go around. Besides, she _normally _had a dragon guarding her.

Sienna ducked under a low branch. Her eyes whipped back and forth. If she could find one of the others that were escaping the camp... but most of them were gone by now. She only needed to hold out for a few minutes before the ones who'd stayed to hold them off bolted. Unless, of course, they'd all been arrested, and it was the human that would be getting reinforcements.

Best not to risk it. She kicked one foot up, drew the knife, and whirled around with her arm extended. The human's eyes widened, and she skidded to a stop to avoid impaling herself. She ducked down, and grabbed a sturdy branch off the ground.

Sienna eyed the girl's stance warily. It was nothing she recognized, which meant either that she had no idea what she was doing, or she practiced some obscure style that would take her completely by surprise.

Her knife hand lashed out, and discovered that there was, in fact, a third option. The human dodged the swipe with practiced ease, moving expertly on the balls of her feet... and then hurled the stick at her head with no technique whatsoever.

Sienna ducked and darted in close before she could re-arm herself, but the girl was already turning towards her unarmed side. She was fast, light on her feet, and responded to every attack as though... well... as though Sienna were at least three or four times larger than she actually was, with a reach to match. She hadn't thought to use the stick to block the knife, and never made any attempt to deflect it. She just avoided them using increasingly improbable gymnastics.

Finally, Sienna managed to corner her against a tree. She swung wide, giving her no room to dodge to either side, her teeth bared in grim satisfaction. The human kicked off the tree trunk, _flipped over her head,_ and grabbed one of her wrists. The next thing she knew she was pinned to the tree, her knife on the ground at her feet.

Sienna tried to wrench her arm away, and managed to stamp on the human's foot. She kept struggling, knowing that she might have only minutes before Winter Schnee showed up with a fully grown dragon. Would Flux hear her if she—

A dry _hiss. _Sienna went completely, utterly still.

The human hadn't heard, yet, though she stiffened at the sudden lack of resistance. Sienna twisted her head to peer into the shadows. Two sun-yellow eyes glinted back at her.

Her little hybrid. The saboteur that had killed several of their scouts, and shredded the Lieutenant's arm.

Sienna was suddenly much less concerned about Winter Schnee.


	72. A Dragon Makes a Choice

**Happy Friday folks! This chapter starring the White Fang, dragon body language, and lots of young dragons.**

* * *

**72\. A Dragon Makes a Choice**

* * *

At first, Pyrrha didn't understand why the woman had tensed up. She risked a look over her shoulder and saw only dim, shadowy woods. Heard nothing, except for the wind whispering in the trees. But _something _made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

"Good girl," the White Fang woman murmured.

Pyrrha whirled around. Now she could hear it, a low rasping hiss coming from the trees behind her. Two pale yellow eyes gleamed in the dark.

She let go, slowly. No sudden movements. As she moved back, she planted a foot on the fallen knife and slid it away from the woman. The hissing didn't stop.

"That's it," the woman went on. Her voice was soft, but Pyrrha thought she heard it shake. "That's right."

The dragon slipped soundlessly out of the shadows. Sunlight fell across her scales, turning them sandy yellow, and Pyrrha's heart lurched as if she'd just missed a step. If the rider hadn't been right in front of her, she would have sworn this was a pit dragon—scars criss-crossed her muzzle, there was a nick in her left ear, and she moved warily, like she expected an attack at any moment. She was hardly taller than a horse at the shoulder—six months old, at most.

A surge of anger choked her. She must have shown it, somehow, because the dragon dropped into a defensive pose and bared her teeth. Cursing her mistake, Pyrrha forced herself to relax... and let her eyes slide shut. She held them that way for several seconds, her heart pounding, before she opened them again. The dragon was still staring at her, completely bewildered by the show of trust.

The White Fang woman kept up a steady stream of quiet, soothing murmurs. As the dragon's posture shifted, she whispered, "That's it. Get the human."

Pyrrha's stomach dropped. This was it—there was no coming back from that, no fighting a dragon _and _its rider alone in the woods. How could she have been so reckless, coming out here? What would Jaune and Twiggy—

Another hiss. This one was far from quiet, and the dragon flared her wings to make herself look bigger. It hit Pyrrha then—the bizarre behavior, the injuries, the way she blended into the forest like she belonged there. She _wasn't _bonded to the White Fang woman. Perhaps her rider had died just after she hatched, or her egg had been abandoned for some reason. Most of her scars looked like they might have come from other dragons, but that could just as easily have been _Grimm._

And some were too clean to have been either—but Pyrrha wouldn't dwell on that now. Her life depended on _calm._

"You've been alone out here for a long time, haven't you?" she said.

The dragon drew back as if slapped. Too much—Pyrrha took care to let her hands dangle at her sides, ducking her head to make herself smaller. "It's alright. I won't hurt you. I can't, see? No weapons."

She caught a glimpse of the White Fang woman's lips pulled back in a soundless snarl. "She's lying." Another hiss, and wave of hot, dry air rolled over them. Pyrrha stumbled back as yellow eyes narrowed to slits and every plant within a dozen feet of the dragon withered and died. Realization struck Pyrrha _again. _She'd thought at first sight that this was a fire dragon—and she _did _have horns instead of head-fins, but she also had the long whiplike tail and gigantic wings of a wind dragon, and her powers were completely different. A hybrid.

"She and her Schnee friends are here to destroy the camp. They brought dragons."

The hybrid didn't react at all to the name Schnee, but her ears flicked at the mention of the camp being destroyed. Still she stood there, watching them both, her teeth slightly bared to remind them not to make any aggressive moves. Pyrrha allowed herself to hope. If she could just keep this up long enough for one of the others to come looking for her...

A sharp intake of breath from the White Fang woman. Frustration, maybe, or fear. Whichever it was, she spoke much too sharply. "It's _me." _She took a step forward.

In the instant that she moved, the hybrid lashed out. The woman just managed to dodge the swipe, tripped over a root, and landed flat on her back. The noise that followed was half enraged growl, half anguished whine—and a horrible suspicion started in the back of Pyrrha's mind, that maybe her first guess hadn't been so far off after all.

"Easy!" She made sure not to raise her hands. Keeping her steps small and slow, she moved so that she stood between the hybrid and the faunus. "It's alright. She's going to stay there." Pyrrha shot the woman on the ground a pointed look.

The hybrid's eyes were wild. She pranced in place with her nostrils flaring. A small whimper escaped her, and she turned it into a threatening growl. Every movement was jerky and erratic, and for an instant she reminded Pyrrha powerfully of Tornado. She knelt down, placing her hands flat on the ground. "You're safe," she murmured, though a lump in her throat threatened to block the words. "I promise."

* * *

_Safe._

When Sienna was right there. When every inch of her was thrumming with the urge to lie down, to whimper and whine and let anything happen as long as she could finally go home. When she was sure she was one touch away from coming apart at the seams.

She brought her bared teeth inches away from the liar's face and _screamed._

The smell of fear filled the air, but the human still didn't move. Didn't draw a weapon. That made her angrier, somehow, which was good. Anger helped her remember.

She clung to it as Sienna pushed herself onto her hands and knees and looked up. No words, yet. She hissed, hoping to keep her silent, as conflicting impulses paralyzed her. It was time to run, before others came, but she didn't want to. She wanted to bite, to lick her face, to hurl her across the clearing, to curl up around her...

A deafening roar broke the spell.

"Brand!" It was Justice—he'd done it before, too, but he'd been too far away then for her to make out words. Now she could tell that he was scared. She sniffed the air again, and past the cloying fear and heartache she could sense strange dragons. _Intruders._

Justice had come back again, and these people had scared him. Her eyes fixed on the human and, as if she'd sensed the change, she sprang to her feet.

And there it was. Feeling a vicious satisfaction at _finally _breaking the lie, she lunged for the human and—missed. Her prey stepped smoothly out of the way, just out of reach of her claws, and shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet. Sienna moved towards her, as if she wanted to fight the human _together._

_No._

She roared at Sienna, making her ears go flat and her eyes wide. She stumbled back, glanced at the human, and fled into the forest. Then, after she was already out of sight, she whistled high and long. Calling the replacement.

Rage boiled up inside her. Little flames came when she called them, burning her footprints into the forest floor. Dry air billowed from her jaws, cracking the human's skin, but she shielded her face with one arm. Another lunge, and again she slipped out of the way. It was like trying to attack water.

She let free a frustrated bellow. Never in her _life _had she wanted so badly to hit something, to bite and tear until the twisted feeling in her belly went away, and this stupid human just wouldn't stay _still!_

And, all the while, she kept talking. Always softly, soothingly, hardly pausing even as she danced away from every claw swipe and ducked under every tail whip. Mostly nonsense mixed with the same set of lies—it's alright, you're safe, I won't hurt you. Then, "That was your rider, wasn't it?"

Pain flared all through her chest, like someone had poured freezing water over her insides. She screeched in fury and, for the first time, aimed her claws not at the human's arms and legs, but at her throat.

Not that it mattered. She ducked under that, too. There was a spark of anger in her eyes, now. Finally she would attack—but she didn't.

"What did they _do _to you?"

The human was angry _for_ her, not _at _her. Something inside boiled over, and she attacked in a sudden frenzy. Her howl mixed with a pained cry—_finally _she had landed a hit, a shallow one across the human's back. She stumbled, tripped over a root, and landed hard on the injury.

Too late, she noticed the glint of metal on the ground. The human saw it too. She growled low in her throat and lunged. Missed. They were almost nose to nose, now, her hand inches from the knife. Even then, when it would be so easy to grab it and strike at her eyes... she didn't. She rolled to her feet, wincing, and backed away from the knife.

"We just want them to _stop," _she said. The fake calm was gone, and as she spoke her voice broke. "But that won't help you, will it?"

She sprang forward. All thought of why she was fighting had vanished—all she wanted was for the human to _stop talking._ Another attack, one she would dodge just like all the others. But at the last second she slammed a back paw into the dirt and changed direction and bore her to the ground. There she crouched, panting, the human pinned under her paws.

Twigs snapped in the forest nearby. Something big coming towards them at top speed. She glared at the human, still trapped in her grip. She wanted... wanted... but the words wouldn't come, and the lack of them built up in her throat and turned into an ear-splitting shriek. Then she sprang away and tore off into the woods.

She could already tell there would be Grimm tonight.

* * *

The second the White Fang dragons broke and ran, Twiggy bounded forward into the camp. She trampled several tents in her haste, skidded around the corner, and found the others. Her eyes scanned frantically back and forth. Where was—

"Jaune!" Nora pointed towards the trees. "Pyrrha!"

Twiggy jumped right over Ao Guang, where he was struggling with a pinned Justice. Steele and Quake were right behind her, and she knew they could handle it. But if Pyrrha had run off all alone... Her heart pounded in her chest like a gigantic drum as she crashed through the undergrowth, looking frantically around. Nothing, nothing... and then a scream of rage and pain. A _dragon's _scream.

Jaune tugged at the reins to urge her onward as she bolted towards the sound. More roars followed—her feet skidded on a patch of mud as she pelted across, heedless of anything except finding the source of that horrible sound. Finally, she caught a glimpse of red through the trees and bolted towards it.

There was a flash of yellow in the shadows as she leaped in front of Pyrrha—but an instant later it was gone, and there was no sign that another dragon had been there at all.

No sign, except for Pyrrha's injuries.

Jaune leaped off her back. Twiggy whined low in her throat and nuzzled against her side, purring and licking the cuts on her back. Her rider, meanwhile, fumbled in one of her saddlebags for a first-aid kit. Pyrrha let out a shaky sigh. "I'm alright."

He said nothing as he bandaged her back. That was the worst of it—though she winced when he touched her side, and it turned out she'd hit something hard enough to leave a large bruise there. Here and there were dry patches on her skin, and the knuckles on her left hand were bleeding a little. Jaune frowned at the sight of them. "What...?"

"I met a hybrid."

Twiggy whined again and curled up around Pyrrha and Jaune, covering them both with a wing. "Nno," she said. "No more."

"I know," Pyrrha said. "I'm sorry, I just..."

"Just what?" Jaune asked. "Pyrrha... you have to stop doing stuff like this. _Please, _just let us help."

"I didn't mean to." She scratched Twiggy behind the ears, soothing some of the fear of the last few minutes. "I just wanted to do something, and one of their riders ran off on her own."

"So let her go!" Jaune burst out. "Whoever she was, she's not as important as _you, _okay?"

Pyrrha said nothing for a long moment. Then, reluctantly, she nodded into his shoulder. "We should get back. The others..."

"They're okay, from what I saw." He still nudged Twiggy, and after a few heartbeats she made herself get up. With both Jaune and Pyrrha on her back, she trotted towards the camp. "Things seemed like they were under—"

They broke out of the trees, and into a swirling maelstrom of random trash. An indigo hatchling was wriggling frantically in Freya's grip, wailing at the top of its lungs in a voice almost as deep as Ragnar's. Meanwhile a grey and gold one pelted in circles around the clearing, shrieking as it dodged between Steele and the flailing pile of limbs that was Ao Guang and Justice.

"Grab that dragonet!" Winter shouted.

Twiggy tried to pounce on him, but between her surprise and the two humans on her back, she missed. His tail flicked out and whacked the side of her foreleg, sending a painful jolt up her spine. By the time she recovered, he had already vanished into the undergrowth.

Winter said something else, but it was completely drowned out by the combined noise of Justice, the indigo dragonet, and a big man on the ground who was just starting to stir. Finally she turned to Steele and nodded. He stalked forward, picked up the big man in his teeth, dropped him next to Ao Guang and Justice, and put a paw down on both White Fang riders. The noise stopped.

"Thank you, Steele," Winter gritted out. Her eyes flashed as she rounded on Ilia. "You lied to us."

Ilia's eyes were wide, and as Winter spoke her whole body flashed bright yellow. "I didn't! I swear, I—"

"Was that supposed to be an ambush? You must have known you'd lose a direct fight." Her hands tightened into fists. "You're going to tell me the plan. _Now."_

Ilia's skin went from yellow to fiery red. "I didn't _lie," _she shouted, glaring at Blake. "I _told _you I couldn't control him anymore and that was _completely true!"_

"You expect us to believe—"

"Stop!" Blake broke in. Winter rounded on her, but she didn't back down. "She did tell me he was acting up. I just didn't think it would be this bad."

Winter stood there for a moment, rigid with fury. Then she scoffed, her lip curling slightly. "So much for discipline," she muttered. "The lab. Where is it?"

Blake answered, even though she'd been looking at Ilia. "It's over there," she said, and gestured towards the biggest tent. "We broke the injectors. I think they took some of the Dust and equipment before we got here, but it looks like all of the eggs are still there."

Winter grimaced. "Does anyone have anything they can..." she trailed off, arching an eyebrow at Tai, who had pulled off one of Quake's saddle bags.

"Hang on! I always bring one of these whenever I—_ow, _what the—right, forgot about the handsaw—" Finally he drew his hand back out and brandished an empty leather bag. "This baby holds eight eggs at a time!"

"I counted seven," Weiss said. "I think most of them were already injected."

Tai grimaced. "Alright. Here's hoping they wait until _after _we get to Atlas to hatch." He, Blake, and Weiss went inside to load up the eggs.

With Steele keeping Justice and the hatchling still, Freya and Guang trotted over to where Twiggy stood. Nora jumped out of the saddle and wrapped Pyrrha in a hug. Ren gave her good shoulder a warm squeeze.

Twiggy wound around Pyrrha and Jaune, her tail flicking, glaring stubbornly at them. She wasn't letting either of them out of her sight for the rest of the day. Or maybe ever, if she could get away with it.

She hadn't kept her promise, today. She shouldn't have let Pyrrha run off on her own. If she'd been hurt—no, not if, she_ had._ She nosed against the bandages, careful to be gentle. Pyrrha patted her muzzle. "I'm alright, I promise."

Twiggy huffed, ruffling her hair. "Ssstay," she said. Pyrrha swallowed hard and hugged her around the neck.

"I will."

"Gud." Twiggy would do better from now on. She'd make sure Pyrrha stayed close by, and she'd keep her safe like Titan would've wanted.


	73. Prisoners

**Hello again! Here's another chapter, this time starring Gigas being much too friendly with these new dragon's for Justice's comfort, and Sienna realizing that the Lieutenant just left her alone with the Albains.**

* * *

**73\. Prisoners**

* * *

They worked as quickly as they could, but they still weren't ready to leave until the sun was sinking towards the horizon. By then, Ren was half-asleep on his feet. They had to search the entire camp, pack up whatever food and water they could find—technically stealing, but they didn't have much choice if they wanted to make it through the desert—and destroy anything they thought could be used to inject more eggs.

Then there were the weapons. Mostly guns and knives, though there were a few more esoteric ones thrown in. Twiggy, Zircon, and Quake worked together to bury them deep enough that the White Fang wouldn't be able to find them if they came back.

Finally, Winter called them out in front of the tent where the lab had been and said, "Ilia will ride on Quake." She turned to the tall man, who was clearly still woozy with blood loss. "You will stay with me." Justice and the indigo dragonet, whose name was apparently Gigas, protested loudly. "You two," she went on, with a pointed glare that silenced them at once, "will _behave."_

"Um." Ilia winced when Winter looked at her. "Gigas can't fly yet."

"Justice will take him."

There was a slight pause. _"Move," _she barked. "We need to put some distance between us and the White Fang before dark."

Ren couldn't help a small smile at the sight of Gigas perched on Justice's back. He sat inside a basket that Blake had found and strapped to the saddle, his head poking out and his tiny wings fluttering. His rider made a much more sinister picture where he sat behind Winter. One arm was still immobilized in bandages, and the other had been tied behind his back with a loop of rope.

It was all a bit haphazard, and Ren suspected that most of the White Fang members they had caught would escape long before Vacuo could send a Flight Squad after them. Only the big man, as far as Blake knew, had any kind of rank in the organization, so they could at least bring him along with them and make sure he ended up in custody.

There was a small hiccup when Twiggy refused to give Pyrrha up. She and Jaune took turns trying to talk her down, until eventually she allowed her to climb up onto Quake's back behind Ilia.

Then, finally, they took off. Sunset already stained the horizon a dazzling pink. Ren watched it for a while, enjoying the peace of the moment as the clouds faded to violet. He stared so long that he started to see phantom spots, and blinked them away—along with a small speck that vanished, unremarked, an instant after it appeared.

* * *

"Where's Flux?"

Justice groaned. "I don't _know," _he said, for the _fifth time._ "She escaped with Sienna."

Gigas pawed at his back. He turned his head just enough to shoot the dragonet a quelling look.

"Where are we going?"

"Atlas," Justice spat, seething. Ilia had told him stories about Atlas.

"I want Ur—the Lieutenant."

"Don't you know what a _prisoner _is?" Justice asked, exasperated.

"I don't want to _be _here," Gigas whined. "I want to be with Flux and Harbinger and the big one!"

"No you don't," he snapped. "Stay away from her, she's dangerous."

Gigas started wriggling in his basket, as if he was trying to escape. "Stop that!" Justice barked, alarmed. With his stumpy little wings he'd probably plummet straight down.

"I want the Lieutenant!"

To Justice's horror, Specter noticed the commotion and dropped back from his place between Pit and Fang. "We'll be landing pretty soon," he told Gigas. "Then you can stay with your rider. Just... don't start throwing things, please."

"Or _what?" _Justice snarled. "You'll hurt his rider?"

"What? No!"

He scoffed. "Why do you think the Schnee made us fly separately?"

Specter glared at him. "We're not going to hurt _Ilia _for something _you _did. But if she was on your back you'd just fly off, or try to set us on fire."

Gigas whined at the sharp words, and hid behind the rim of his basket.

"Sorry," Specter said, more softly this time. "I know how it feels to have to do things you don't want to."

"Huh?"

"Don't talk to him, Gigas," Justice said, looking pointedly away from the ice dragon.

"Well," Specter went on, ignoring him, "_do_ you want to fight?"

"I want Flux. And Harbinger, and the big one, and Brand—"

Specter's ears perked up. "Brand isn't the big one?"

"No. Well, he's bigger, but he doesn't talk to us much. Mostly he just sleeps when there aren't any Grimm around."

"Is the big one the one that attacked Pyrrha?"

"Shut _up, _Gigas!"

"Who's Pyrrha?"

"The human with the long red hair. Flux's rider and another hybrid attacked her in the woods."

"Oh, that wasn't her," Gigas said confidently. "She doesn't listen to Sienna like Flux does. Harbinger says she must be broken, and that's why she—hey!" His weight shifted dangerously as Justice sent a warning flash of heat through his scales.

"I told you to _stop," _he hissed. "He's trying to make you tell him secrets!"

"I'm not!" Specter protested. "I just want to know who attacked my friend!"

But Gigas _finally _went quiet, and didn't say anything more about the traitor hybrid. He did keep whining that he wanted to be with the Lieutenant, and Flux and Harbinger, as if the humans were going to let them go just because he was upset. But he ignored it when Specter kept apologizing, and eventually used his powers to tug on his reins and shove him away from them.

The sun was almost set when he finally got tired and stopped talking, leaving Justice alone with his thoughts. He tried to think of some way that he and Ilia could go back. They could tell the others that it wasn't her fault, that the humans had tricked her. But he didn't think anyone would believe it, not even when it was true. They couldn't go back. Not ever.

And then, in the back of his mind, _Not with Ilia, you can't._

Anger roiled in the pit of his stomach, a flash of hatred so intense that it heated his scales and woke up Gigas. Just because there was something wrong with _her, _she had to make him think these things, too. He hoped Brand had found her after the fight. He hoped the Fang got away from her, and she was left all alone in the woods with nothing to hurt except the Grimm.

But at the thought of it the anger drained away, and he was left feeling hollow instead. He thought of Gigas, stubbornly demanding to go back to Flux and Harbinger. Justice wished he wasn't too old to make demands like that. More than that, he wished he knew what to ask for.

* * *

They landed as the last color faded from the sky. The forest had gone yellow and patchy, and Pit didn't have much trouble finding a spot to curl up for the night—but he didn't go to sleep just then. For one thing, Blake and Weiss were talking. The kind of talking that meant he and Specter should probably leave them alone for a little while. For another...

He padded over to where the dragonet huddled in the crook of his rider's arm. Tai and Quake sat nearby, watching both of them in case they tried to escape. The big man was asleep, probably exhausted from trying to fight with his injury. Two violet eyes glared at Pit as he approached, and a low growl sounded in the back of his throat. His voice was so low for his size that he sounded more like a Grimm than a hatchling.

"Are you hungry?" Pit asked.

"No," the dragonet said stubbornly. He was curled up around his belly and, when Pit extended a pawful of oats, his head stretched involuntarily towards it.

Pit chuffed and dropped the oats next to the dragonet. After another suspicious glare, the little one attacked them furiously. Specter, hearing the noise, wandered up to the two of them.

"Hello," he said quietly.

"No." Gigas hid his head under a wing. He had to twist his body around to do it, since his wings were so small.

"He smells a little like you," Specter said. "All... heavy, and—" he cut off with a startled yelp, as Gigas lunged forward and bit him on the nose. "Hey!"

"Let him go," Pit told Gigas. "And give him some space, okay?"

Specter put a paw over his snout. "I already figured that out," he grumbled.

"Do you need anything?" Gigas kept staring at him, his little wings slightly extended to make himself look bigger. Not that he _needed _it. He was built like a boulder, all heavy bone plates sticking up from his spine and thick spikes jutting from the end of his tail. Pit could see his own square jaw reflected in the dragonet, even more pronounced.

Pit tried again. "Water, maybe? I think Tai has some."

"I want Flux."

His ears drooped as he remembered the grey and gold dragonet. "Flux is your..."

"My sister." He pawed at the ground. "You chased her away."

He glanced at Specter, and saw that his tail had gone limp with guilt. "Sorry," Pit mumbled. "We didn't want for that to happen, but we had to shut down their lab."

"I don't care about the stupid lab."

A sickly knot formed in Pit's stomach. How was he supposed to explain to a hatchling that his rider had been willing to experiment on dozens, maybe even hundreds of eggs to make him? It was hard enough to wrap his head around the fact that _he'd _been made in that place that smelled like blood and death. If Blake had been _participating..._ he shuddered.

"What's your sister like?" Specter asked.

Gigas bared his teeth.

"Nothing _secret,"_ he promised. "Just... what games do you play together?"

The hatchling was quiet for a minute. Just when Pit thought he wasn't going to answer, he said, "We chase each other mostly."

Specter bobbed his head. "That's always fun. I did that with Pit and Storm, though usually if Fang and I tried it we ended up wrestling instead."

"She always wins," Gigas admitted. "And then she jumps on me and shocks me by accident."

"Have you played this one?" Pit asked, and pounced on Specter's tail. His brother squawked and flailed, then fell over onto his side.

Gigas watched them dubiously. "I think that would hurt," he said.

Pit nodded. "We probably shouldn't jump on you... but I bet you could get Specter." Specter stuck his tongue out at him.

Over the next few minutes, they slowly coaxed Gigas out from under his rider's arm and got him chasing the tips of their tails in circles. He was clumsy—he kept tripping over them and rolling in the dirt—but he twanged happily every time he managed to catch one of them. Pit started secretly letting him win. Tai watched them play with a smile on his face.

The sun set, and the moon crept up over the tops of the scrubby trees. Gigas lolled on his back, making noises like someone plucking a rubber band while Specter gently poked his stomach with his tail. Pit was trying, and failing, not to laugh. Then a sinister red light fell over them, and all three dragons froze.

"What are you _doing?"_ hissed Justice.

Steele, who was keeping an eye on him, cuffed him with one paw. "You're not starting another fight," he warned.

Justice ignored him, glaring instead at Gigas. "I _told _you to stop talking to them!"

Gigas twanged in alarm and darted back under the big man's arm. His tail jostled him enough that he grunted and opened his eyes. Pit froze as the man fixed him with the most poisonous glare he'd ever seen.

"Fuck off!" he snarled.

Reluctantly, they backed away. Justice watched them go, his eyes glowing scarlet, his teeth bared. "Stay away from him!" he growled, even as Steele fixed him with a warning glare.

It was probably time they left, anyway. Weiss and Blake were already half-asleep, sitting with their backs to one of the trees. Pit scoffed and nudged them with his nose until they got up, then settled down behind them so they could lean on him instead. Specter's tongue poked out as he yawned, padded in a small circle, and lay on his rider's other side. All three of the others were asleep in minutes.

Even though it hadn't been that long since their grueling chase, Pit couldn't sleep. He kept remembering the sickly smell, the glass vials and metal machines, the shards of shell scattered in the dirt.

He pushed his nose against Blake's side and took a long, shaky breath. She stirred, opened one eye, and patted his forehead. "What's up?" she mumbled sleepily.

"...Tank 'oo."

"Hmm?"

Pit didn't know how to explain, so he purred softly until she fell back to sleep.

* * *

It took almost ten minutes for Flux to find her. By then she'd finally come to her senses and fled the scene—but not before lingering much too long in the shadows, watching...

_What did they do to you?_

Sienna looked up at the sound of a high, terrified shriek, and raised an arm in time for her dragonet to collide with it at top speed. She clung there, claws digging in painfully, squeaking and wailing and sparking.

_"Quiet!"_

Her jaws snapped shut. Her eyes still darted back and forth, her whole body trembling, her tail winding around Sienna's wrist until she started losing feeling in her fingertips. She shushed the dragonet, stroking her back until the shaking subsided a little.

"There," she murmured, scratching the tiny creature under the chin. Flux's eyes fluttered shut, and she buried her face in the crook of Sienna's elbow. A small whimper escaped her.

"Did you see anyone else on your way here?" Sienna asked.

Flux squeaked and bobbed her head.

"Where?"

She tilted her head to one side, then pointed with her tail. Sienna wasn't sure it would work, but she thought it was worth a try—she gave her wrist a light toss. Flux jumped and clung even tighter, wailing in distress.

Sienna winced and muttered an apology before placing the dragonet on her shoulder. She _had,_ as far as Sienna knew, only just figured out how to fly. Of course she was exhausted. That she'd even managed as much as she had was impressive.

She didn't know _how _impressive, since she'd never attended a Dragonry... but Harbinger had only recently started taking small flights around the camp, and he was much older. Probably something to do with the fact that he had earth and fire in him, and Flux was almost all lightning.

So Flux pointed with her tail, and Sienna followed her directions on foot. She found several of the Fang running that way, including their medic, and let out a quiet sigh of relief. That was _one _potential disaster averted, then.

Over the next several hours, small bands of their members came together slowly, often in twos and threes. She found Fennec and then, almost an hour later, Harbinger and Corsac. The hybrid jumped on Fennec, tackling him to the ground. With them came Brand—and Hazel.

Sienna started to hope when they found Perry, along with several pieces of injection equipment that he'd hoisted over his shoulders. But the next group brought worse news—one of them had seen the Lieutenant and Gigas, along with more than a dozen others, captured by the Schnees. Flux had barely escaped them.

Harbinger, on hearing the news, started to howl. It took Corsac and Fennec's combined efforts to quiet him, and Sienna had to pinch Flux's jaws shut to get her to stop crying. "They might still be close," she whispered. "We can't make so much noise." The dragonet peeped and tried to hide inside Sienna's shirt. It took several minutes to persuade her to wrap herself around her neck instead, nestled under her hair and making her skin prickle with latent electricity.

Sienna didn't let herself react to the news, except with a grimace. Privately, though...

_Damn it._

He'd probably saved half the camp by delaying the enemy the way he had... but he'd also left her alone with the Albains. And Hazel, which wasn't any improvement.

And...

The tingling at the back of her neck had nothing to do with Flux, this time. She glanced over her shoulder into the shadowy woods. Nothing there... but the rogue hybrid was very good at going unnoticed. What if...?

She swallowed and turned her head away, trying to listen to Corsac's plan for reuniting with everyone else who'd managed to escape. But in the back of her mind, she kept seeing those yellow eyes. The bruises on her back, where she'd been thrown into the ground, throbbed at the memory.

The hybrid had attacked her—she'd learned to expect that. But she had also defended her against the human. _Why?_

But that wasn't the _real _question. Why run away? What was wrong with her?

_What did they do to you?_

Her lips pulled back in a snarl. What _had _they done, besides feed and shelter and raise the ungrateful little creature?

Unwillingly, she remembered the _first _dragonet that would have been hers, the one that had died within hours of its hatching. She grimaced. But without that failure, the hybrid would never have existed in the first place—and besides, she didn't know.

Unless...

Flux squeaked and nibbled on her ear. Not hard—but a spark jumped, making it a lot more painful than it was intended to be. Sienna winced and patted the dragonet's head. She'd been planning to introduce her and Gigas to the lab soon, but perhaps it would be better to wait.

And if the hybrid was still following them, maybe she could be reasoned with. The human seemed to have had some success, after all—which _rankled._ If they could explain things to her as they'd explained them to Harbinger and Justice, _maybe..._

Sienna hoped she hadn't followed—deep down, she knew how that would end.

* * *

**Alright! We've finally gotten another collision between the White Fang and the main plot, after like... fifty-somethingish chapters. Which looked like a bit less time laid out in a grid, not gonna lie. I am curious what people think of the Fang dragons, too. They've been fun to write, even if they've kinda been in their own world for a while.**


	74. Among the Dunes

**Hello again. Happy Friday, and happy November I guess? My outline for this chapter included the bizarre phrase, "suspicious, but eats cactus."**

* * *

**74\. Among the Dunes**

* * *

The desert, Neptune learned almost as soon as they left the scrubby forest, _sucked._

It could've been worse, he supposed. Tai had thought to bring sunscreen, and to give it to Qrow before they split up. Between that, and huddling under their dragons' outstretched wings, they managed to scrape by without getting burned too badly. Of course, that didn't stop sand from getting absolutely everywhere—and it didn't feed them, either.

Even though their rescue party had brought supplies, it wasn't actually all that much divided between something like twenty people, and it was worse for the dragons. It was basically impossible to haul around enough to feed them all. They'd done a little hunting when they were still in the forest—Steele had managed to kill two deer—but now they were lucky if they managed to catch a rabbit.

By the second day, everyone was short-tempered and exhausted. Everyone... except Sun.

"I kinda figured you'd like it out here," he said cheerfully, as Neptune tried fruitlessly to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun reflecting off the sand. It felt like there was a Boarbatusk rattling around inside his skull. "Y'know. No water and all."

"Die."

Sun tipped his head back and laughed. His shirt—still unbuttoned, Neptune had no idea how his entire torso wasn't already peeling—fluttered in a hot, dry breeze. "Aw, c'mon! Look at that _sky!"_

Neptune groaned and put his hands over his eyes. The sky Sun was talking about was a gorgeous pale blue vault overhead, and he would have given just about _anything _for some clouds.

Scarlet, who was trudging along a few feet to their left, started muttering darkly under his breath. Sage gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder.

"Nneh." He glanced to his right, and smiled as Nymph spread her wing over his head.

"Thanks, girl."

The dragons were just as tired and hungry as they were, so he'd feel bad asking her to keep that up all the time... but it was _very_ nice. Though the sun beat down on them so mercilessly that it was blinding even through her wing membrane. He'd taken to wearing his riding goggles, but even _that _wasn't enough.

"Dude, look!" Neptune hung his head and groaned. Sun grabbed his shoulder and gave it a little shake. "No, seriously!"

He glanced up. A flock of dark spots had appeared on the horizon, flying out from the woods. Neptune squinted, tried to count, then gave up when his head started to throb again. If it was their people, great. If not, he couldn't muster the energy to care.

"Let me know when they're close enough to see," Neptune mumbled, and let his head rest on Sun's shoulder.

Sun laughed and ruffled his hair. "Sure thing, dude."

It turned out to be allies, not a horde of pit dragons following them out of the forest. Steele landed first, with Winter sliding off his back with a gigantic musclebound prisoner in tow. He wobbled on his feet, squinting in the bright sunlight, one arm hanging uselessly at his side. Seconds later, a small indigo blur jumped off Justice's back and darted up to him so that it could start headbutting his knees.

"Uh," Neptune said.

"We've got some more supplies!" Taiyang announced. "Who wants lunch?"

Winter shot him a withering look. "They won't last all the way across the desert," she said bluntly. "I'm going to fly ahead and see if I can find an airship that can carry Storm. Stay together, keep moving, and don't let _these_ escape." She gestured at the big man and the dragonet, who bared its teeth at her.

With that, and a brief nod towards Weiss, she and Steele were off again. Sun wandered over towards the others, which meant that Neptune went too. "What's going on?" he asked Blake, glancing at the stranger and his dragon.

"We caught some of the White Fang, but... there was really only so much we could do to make sure they stayed caught. Most of them will probably escape. He's high-ranking, so..."

"Oh." Sun paused, digesting that. "And, Ilia...?"

She was on Quake, between Tai and Pyrrha, and looking resigned. Blake winced. "There's been some trouble with Justice."

"If that's what you want to call attacking us," Weiss cut in, making a face.

"Hang on, he what?" Yang blurted, from where she and Ruby were standing. Blake's explanation brought on more questions, until they finally got the whole story.

"Well," Sun said, running a hand through his hair. "Shit."

* * *

Slowly... carefully... Gigas peeked one eye open. Instantly it was seared with light, and he croaked and buried his head under his rider's collar.

There was an amused chuff somewhere high above his head.

A shadow fell across them both. He blinked a few times, then stared up at the deep brown canopy over his head. Quake had raised one of his wings to shield him. Gigas put his front paws up on his rider's head so that he could stretch his neck even higher into the air.

Everything looked so _different _out here. He'd always wanted to see the world outside their little tent, but he'd never thought it would be like this. There weren't even any trees!

The earth dragon chuckled again. "You're getting too big for that," he said. "It'll hurt his neck."

Whining dejectedly, Gigas draped himself over Ursan's shoulders. Even that made him grunt a little with the effort, so he hopped down to trot alongside him. It was disappointing, but the grateful scratch behind his ears made it better.

This close to the ground, the air was thick with the hot, dry scent of scorched sand—it smelled just like the big one. Gigas breathed it in, then warbled happily and rolled onto his back.

He had the time, because the humans were _slow. _Quake had explained that their riders couldn't move as quickly as they could, especially out here in the desert, without hurting themselves. Sometimes he sat on Justice's back for a while, but only ever to walk. When he asked why they weren't flying, everyone had gotten very quiet, and Pit had told him that someone had hurt the wind dragon, Storm, so that she couldn't fly until it healed.

Gigas hadn't responded, because Ursan didn't like it when he talked to the strangers. It was hard to dislike them as much as his rider, and Justice, wanted him to. Secretly, he'd stopped wishing he could go back to the camp, and started wishing instead that Flux and Harbinger and the big one could have come with him. Though Flux might not like it out here as much as he did—new things made her jumpy. He didn't know why. It was exciting that the world was so _big!_

"Justice?"

Justice was walking a little ways away, where Salty was watching him. "What?" he grumbled.

"How far does the desert go?"

The older dragon tossed his tail dismissively. "I don't know. Far."

"We're at least two weeks away from Vacuo on foot," Salty said. "Even if we run most of the way, which we can't since we don't have that much water. We're mostly just waiting for Winter to come back with that airship, but any distance we can cover in the meantime will help."

Gigas blinked a few times. "Is Vacuo the end of the world?"

Justice groaned. _"No._ And stop asking them questions!"

"Well _you _won't tell me," Gigas grumbled, and hid behind Ursan's legs.

By the time they stopped for the evening, the novelty of the desert was starting to wear off. Gigas was tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and he missed Flux. He curled up in a miserable ball under Ursan's good arm and glared out at the world.

His rider fell asleep almost immediately. He'd been like that since his arm got hurt—Gigas thought it was because he always tried to do everything he used to, and got tired when he couldn't. They told him it had been the big one who did it, but he was sure it was a mistake. She was twitchy, like Flux, and Flux sometimes hurt him by accident when her powers acted up.

There was a hefty thump nearby. Gigas peered out from under Ursan's arm, and saw Pit lying on his belly, with his head in his paws.

"What do you want?" Gigas turned his head away, but he couldn't help sneaking peeks out of the corner of his eye.

"Just to say hi."

Gigas narrowed his eyes, and focused on his powers. Pit let out a startled snort as his head got heavier, and when he tried to jump to his feet it stayed stuck to the ground. For a second Gigas froze—what if he was angry? But when he recovered from the shock, the noise he made was more amused than annoyed.

"You're good with those," he said, his voice slightly muffled. "But I bet I know something that'll get you to let me up."

"...What?" Gigas asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Vacuo's not the end of the world. I've been somewhere even farther away."

His powers snapped off, and he wriggled out from under Ursan to give Pit his full attention. "Really?"

And so Pit told him stories about Vale, and Mistral, and even a few that Blake had told himabout Menagerie.

"We've all been to Vacuo, too," Pit said. "And Weiss comes from Atlas, but she doesn't talk about what it's like there very much. Specter's never been, so I don't really know how different it is from Vale, except that it's cold."

Gigas was so spellbound that he almost didn't notice the ice dragon himself wandering over.

"What are you talking about?" he asked—not angry like Justice usually was when he said something like that, just curious. When Pit told him, he gave his head a lofty toss and told a few stories of his own. He obviously liked getting to play the world-wise traveler, and Gigas was too fascinated with what he was saying to interrupt.

And then, like he always did, Justice noticed them talking.

* * *

"Leave him _alone!"_ Justice snarled.

Specter reared up, startled, and came down heavily on his front paws with a huff. "We were just keeping him company," he said, exasperated. Honestly, Justice was acting like they wanted to eat him or something.

"Hey!" Salty trotted up behind him. "You have to stay with me with me, remember?"

"Don't talk to him!" Smoke curled between Justice's teeth. "You stay away, you hear me?"

"Calm down!" Salty moved to pin him with a paw, but he twisted out of the way.

"No! You and your stupid riders won't get to him, too!"

Specter's ears went flat. He hissed, even as Salty moved to step between them. "Take a step back! Both of you!" Quake and Pepper noticed the commotion then, and started to come closer.

"You don't _get_ to talk to him! It's the stupid Schnees' fault the world is like this in the first place!"

Specter took a swipe at him. Justice lunged at almost the same time, and the two were soon scrabbling in the sand. Pit and Salty both jumped in to try to separate them, but in the next instant Justice snarled, "If Adam were still here—"

His thoughts blanked out. The next instant he and Pit were both shoulder to shoulder, pinning Justice under their paws, roaring and shrieking over Salty's shouts.

Only Weiss' voice could cut through the icy fog that had filled him, as she shouted, _"Stop!"_

Specter stopped. Justice was on his side, his jaws open in a snarl. He whacked him once more on the nose, then sprang away so that he could coil around his rider. Blake was there, too, and soon enveloped by one of Pit's wings.

Salty took over the job of pinning Justice to the ground. He soon stopped struggling and sulked with his head flat on the ground. The big man was awake, holding a shivering Gigas who had crawled under his shirt.

"What the _hell _is going on?!" Qrow demanded, into the sudden silence.

"Ffight," Salty said.

Qrow sighed. "Yeah, I _noticed."_

Quake strode up to the pinned Justice and touched his nose to his shoulder. "I don't want to separate you and the little one," he rumbled, "but we'll have to if this keeps happening."

After the adults and Justice were gone, Weiss tried to scold him. Specter meant to stay quiet and listen, but somehow he kept interrupting her by licking her face and butting his head against her side. Eventually she gave up and patted his muzzle.

"Sssorry," he mumbled. Then, to the quivering lump in the Lieutenant's shirt, "Sorry, Gigas."

The dragonet poked his head out from between two buttons. "Who's Adam?"

Specter couldn't have answered kindly, so he said nothing.

* * *

That night, as usual, Pyrrha couldn't sleep. She lay in the dark under Twiggy's wing for a long time, curled against Jaune's side, listening to them both breathe. The night was so still and silent that she could even hear the faint, slow rhythm of his heart.

She sat up. He mumbled something and reached out, and after a moment's hesitation she nudged him awake.

"Mmh?"

"I'm going to go for a walk. I'll be back in a few minutes."

He blinked sleep out of his eyes. "What? Pyrrha, it's the middle of the night."

"The moon's out. I won't go far."

Jaune opened his mouth to protest again, but closed it when he saw the look on her face. "I... be careful, okay?"

"Okay. Go back to sleep."

"...Okay."

Pyrrha disentangled herself from Twiggy's wing and walked out into the desert night. Jaune lay back down, but didn't shut his eyes.

The moon was nearly full, and it turned the desert around her into a sea of pale silver. The air was bitter cold. She told herself she would turn back as soon as she was out of sight of the others. When they had long since vanished behind her, she kept on walking.

It was like she'd stepped into a dream. Everything looked strangely unreal in this light, as if she might wake up at any minute and be back under Twiggy's wing.

Or back in her bed, in Beacon.

She walked up the side of a dune, struggling a little as sand slipped out from under her feet. Then, in the distance, a hideous cackling laughter started up. Hairs stood up on the back of her neck. For an instant she was sure it must be a Grimm—until she remembered that some parts of Vacuo had hyenas. Then again, the difference might not matter very much if they noticed her.

Pyrrha hesitated near the top. She should go back... and she would. Just a few paces more. She crested the duneand there, mostly hidden in a pool of shadow, was a withered up cactus.

Her heart lurched, and suddenly the hyenas seemed a very distant and immaterial threat. Pyrrha scanned her surroundings until her eyes lit on a slightly rougher edge to one of the dunes.

When she spoke, her voice was much calmer than she felt. "I see you."

The dune shifted. A soft shushing sound, as sand fell in sheets from scales that blended almost perfectly against the backdrop of the desert. Yellow eyes fixed on Pyrrha's, and the hybrid let out a low, threatening hiss.

Pyrrha could hardly hear it over her own pulse thundering in her ears. Slowly, she eased herself down so that she was sitting cross-legged in the sand. The dragon tensed. She stared at her for a long moment with her eyes narrowed, as if affronted that the human wasn't afraid of her.

"I wasn't looking for you," Pyrrha assured her. "I just wanted to go for a walk to clear my head. It's actually quite beautiful out here."

Muscles coiled in her hind legs. Pyrrha took a deep breath and shut her eyes. "I've never been to the desert before. I grew up in Mistral. There are a lot of trees there, and fields where people grow crops or raise animals..."

She talked for a long time about her hometown, Argus. The winter storms that blew in from Mantle, the joint exercises that Flight Squads from Atlas and Mistral sometimes had over the water, even the vast forest where she had gone wrangling.

"It's not about hurting them," she explained, still with her eyes shut. "Sometimes wild dragons get lost and wander too close to human settlements, and we help them find their way back. Or sometimes they're dragons who lost their Riders, and it's our job to take them to a broodery where someone can take care of them."

A noise made her risk opening her eyes. The hybrid froze halfway through tearing a strip off the cactus, and her ears went back. Pyrrha politely averted her gaze and went back to talking about everything and nothing. Eventually, after a few suspicious glares, the dragon went back to devouring her meal.

The moon was nearly set by the time she finished. "I need to go," Pyrrha said. She stood slowly, exaggerating every movement so the hybrid could tell what she was doing. "It'll be too dark for me to find my way back, soon."

A dismissive snort. The hybrid made a great show of ignoring her—but Pyrrha felt eyes on her back as she walked away.

Jaune was still awake when she returned. He asked if she was feeling better, and she surprised them both by smiling. She didn't mention the hybrid—the experience felt too fragile, somehow, so unreal that she was halfway sure she'd dreamed the whole thing. A feeling that only strengthened when she slept soundly through the rest of the night.

Pyrrha might not have believed it, if they hadn't walked past the very same spot. She almost stepped on a small patch of disturbed sand—all that remained of the unfortunate cactus.


	75. The Necessary Paperwork

**:)**

* * *

**75\. The Necessary Paperwork**

* * *

"What is the meaning of this?!"

James stared back at the wall of silhouettes with an innocent expression. "Unfortunately, someone on campus seems to have overheard our previous call and tipped off the media."

He heard Pepon scoff. "You've clearly chosen your side. And if you think playing stupid will save you, James, you are _sorely _mistaken."

James hoped he was wrong—until Winter arrived with reinforcements, playing dumb was his first and best defense.

"I really don't know what you mean," he said blandly. "But this should be easy to fix. Of course, we'll have to be extra careful that we go through all the legal hoops before the inspection, but I'm sure you have most of the paperwork filled out already."

The tense, furious silence that followed told him that they definitely hadn't. There had been a vote, he was sure, and they had decided to use their considerable discretion to skip most of what the public might call _due process._ That was all well and good, from their perspective, so long word didn't get out.

James felt a vicious satisfaction. For once, _he _could be the the one to bury the _Council _under a wall of paperwork. He'd never imagined he'd wish triplicate on his worst enemy... but here he was.

Of course, as soon as someone thought to interview the students that had left the academy, the jig would be up. But at that point all he really needed to do was point at Beacon and say truthfully that he didn't trust Council Riders to take over his school without any sort of oversight. Not when they'd dropped live Dust on _students._

Even when he was winning the war of public opinion, James still wished desperately for a nice, simple Grimm to fight instead.

The Council had no choice except to concede the point, and soon hung up on him. James left his office and found several of his students in the hall outside, including Flynt and Neon.

"We're not on watch today," Flynt said. "How can we help?"

"Keep the reporters entertained." James glanced out the window at where a news crew was filming several of the youngest dragons playing. "We can only count on them playing by the rules as long as eyes are on us, and eyes aren't going to stay on us if all anyone can talk about is paperwork."

"Aye-aye, general!" Neon gave him a shockingly crisp salute, and as he watched the group go he felt a slight twinge of sympathy for whatever poor soul ended up on the receiving end of all that enthusiasm.

The professors, he was more honest with. Three of the four of them had stayed with him—the fourth had been one of the Council's picks, so he was no real surprise. He set them and their dragons patrolling around the grounds, ready to deescalate anything that looked like it might break out into a fight. So far the enemy Riders were staying outside, which was good—but it wouldn't take long for them to get their hands on a warrant. All it would take was one hothead on either side...

James heaved a sigh as he shut himself back in his office. He'd been flipping through any official documents he could find, looking for loopholes he could bend to his advantage. Another job Winter would have been very good at—he was starting to worry he'd been too rash sending her away like that.

He collapsed in his chair and stared out the window into an endless, empty sky.

* * *

Ragnar gave his wings an experimental shake. Their membranes stretched uncomfortably, but not painfully—none of the tears flexed open. "Ssstitch," he told Oscar.

To his surprise, Whitley helped take them out. He knelt down beside Oscar, and the two of them worked slowly and carefully until all the stitches were gone. Glacier watched them with his head tilted to one side. "Why... string?" he asked, as Oscar tossed aside some of the thread he'd used.

"It holds the wound closed," Ragnar replied.

Glacier didn't seem to understand much better after he'd explained, but he watched curiously as the two boys worked. Tempest sat next to him, nudging one of the humans with her tail to get them to slow down whenever she caught Ragnar wincing.

It took a long time. Glacier's tail started to twitch back and forth, faster and faster, and he kept glancing northward. "Go soon?" he asked.

"Soon," Ragnar agreed. They were on the final cut. Oscar removed the last bit of stitching, tossed it away, dusted his hands together and grinned proudly.

"We fly now?"

"No!" Tempest said quickly, before Ragnar could answer.

He huffed at her. "I _know, _youngling."

She bowed her head in apology, though he heard her mutter, "I'm not a youngling," under her breath.

"Why not?" Glacier sniffed at one of his wings.

"If I reopen them by flying too soon, we'll have to stitch them up all over again. It will take much longer for them to heal."

Glacier snorted in frustration. "Slow!"

Tempest bristled. "It's not his fault they hurt his wings," she said sternly.

The ice dragon blinked at her, confused. "No," he agreed. "Still slow."

Ragnar sighed. He couldn't exactly blame Glacier for being impatient, not when he had half a mind to hurl himself into the air and let the cards fall where they may. "I could tell you where we're going," he said, "but I'm not sure what would happen when you got there. Whitley doesn't understand what's happening, so he couldn't explain any of it to James. He might—" Ragnar cut himself off before he could say, _send you home, _but Glacier seemed to understand him anyway. His ears went back and he let out a dangerous hiss.

Tempest shifted reluctantly from foot to foot. "I could go with you," she offered. "If I told James why we were there, I think he'd find somewhere to hide us."

Glacier whined and curled his tail around his feet. "Don't want to," he said stubbornly. "We walk. Together. Faster?"

Ragnar let out an amused chuff and butted his head against Oscar's side, to signal to him that it was time to go. Once the children were mounted up, they broke into a brisk trot. On foot, it was often Glacier's stamina that slowed them the most—he'd been getting steadily better since they'd met, but he still had a hard time running for any length of time.

_As if he hasn't gotten regular exercise in years,_ Ragnar thought. He didn't growl, but it was a near thing. The longer he stayed with Glacier and Whitley, the uglier the picture he could piece together from their behavior. A few of the things he'd noticed might have been simple ignorance—someone who'd never gone to a dragonry might not know how important it was to encourage him to run and fly regularly to keep up his stamina. Others, like his loathing of needles or his habit of sniffing suspiciously at any food he didn't catch himself, were not.

But that was a problem for another time—and Ragnar doubted it would fall to him to address it. If nothing else, he'd be leaving Glacier in capable hands once they got to Atlas. Between Weiss and Specter, Winter and Steele, and Whitley himself, he would be well looked after.

As for the Council...

Ragnar's wings flexed again, testing themselves against the air. He longed to fly, to come rushing towards his rider's faceless killers... Oscar sensed his frustration, and ran a soothing hand over his scales. He let out a breath to calm himself. When he looked up, Tempest was giving him a very pointed look.

_Younglings,_ he thought ruefully. _Since when are they more patient than I am?_

* * *

Jade waited for Cinder with a now-familiar feeling of mixed anticipation and dread. That wasn't so bad—it was much worse to see Emerald's fear and adoration. She couldn't talk to her rider about it, either. Anything that might be interpreted as an insult towards Cinder only upset her. She didn't have the heart to explain it all to Rudder, either.

That left Mercury. They'd started sharing looks, every time one of the new loyal riders said something unnerving, or Watts smiled much too widely. It wasn't what she wanted, but it did make her feel a little better.

Cinder swept into the cabin, Strike following closely behind her. "I have a job for you two," she said, without preamble. Jade's ears pricked up. They'd spent the past few days ferrying food and water to the clearing—it was mind-numbingly boring, and made even a dangerous break-in sound appealing by comparison. Besides, the SDC and the kingdoms never had any security that could scare her. It was _Cinder _that scared her, these days.

"Where are we going?" Emerald asked.

"Beacon. You will meet Tyrian there."

Jade's ears drooped all the way back down. Tyrian was... friendly, she supposed, in his own odd way, but the way he talked to Ozone made her uncomfortable. She'd much rather be with only Emerald, Rudder, and Mercury.

Mercury leaned against Rudder's shoulder and said, "What's the plan?"

Cinder shook her head dismissively. "Tyrian will fill you in when you arrive. He's taking an airship, so he'll get there before you do."

Jade felt a flicker of suspicion. Had Cinder glanced at Strike, before she said that? Or maybe she'd looked at Emerald...

They took off less than an hour later. It was getting dark, the sky lit up by scattered stars. Strangely peaceful, gliding as they were high above the forest, where the air was quiet except for the wind rushing past them. Jade's eyes slid shut.

If only it was always like this. Just her, Emerald, her brother, and his rider.

Jade shook the thought away. Emerald wanted to stay with Cinder, so that was what they were going to do. It wasn't as if she could kidnap her own rider and carry her off somewhere safe.

Even if sometimes she really wanted to.

When they landed for the night, Emerald fell asleep immediately. She'd been acting strange, lately—sometimes when she went to bed she would lay there for hours without sleeping. Jade often had to curl up around her and purr to calm her down enough to drift off. But not tonight.

She lay on her belly beside her rider, rumbling contentedly. Rudder sprawled on his back nearby. He was snoring, his tail twitching in his sleep. Only Mercury was still awake. Jade watched him through one half-lidded eye. He was staring off into the dark woods, his head tilted to one side, as if considering...

"Nno," she murmured. He jumped and turned to stare at her. She stared back.

Finally he sighed explosively and sat beside Rudder. "You're annoying, you know that?"

Jade huffed, pressed her nose into Emerald's side, and ignored him.

* * *

The minute Winter and Steele reached the outskirts of Vacuo, she made straight for the nearest warehouse she thought she could hide him in. There was one nearby that she thought would serve nicely—empty, rundown, with part of the roof missing... but there was an inner room that was much drier, and large enough for even a grown dragon to hide.

It was impossible to go entirely unnoticed. Not with several tons of dragon following behind her, moonlight glinting off his scales. Winter had to hope that, Vacuo being Vacuo, no one in this district at this time of night would be inclined to report her to anyone. At least, not in the time it would take to get her hands on an airship.

Even though she'd traded her military uniform for something more practical for the desert and covered her white hair with her hood, she still drew stares from the people around her. Probably the way she walked—shoulders back, chin up, crisp and self-assured. Too military. She forced herself to relax a little and managed to melt at least partly into the crowd.

Then she stopped dead in front of a hologram, so suddenly that she drew even more stares. Winter ignored them. She could see Atlas Academy on the screen, surrounded by several gigantic transports bearing the Council's symbol. But there was no battle—only students and Council Riders glaring at one another from across the lawn.

_How...?_ But the answer was already right in front of her. They were on video.

She allowed herself a small smirk as she picked up her pace, making for the nearest airfield. Soon the streets were crowded despite the late hour, and she could see dozens of airships docked side by side in a large open space between buildings. Her eyes skimmed right over the largest of them— she could tell that none were meant to transport dragons, so a bigger ship would only mean more room for human passengers that they didn't have. Finally her eyes lit on a small cargo ship that struck her as oddly familiar.

Winter approached, circling the craft. There was a panel on the hull that looked newer than the others. She remembered flying on Steele's back as he latched on to the ship, his claws sinking into metal.

For once, it looked like their luck was turning.

It only took three steps to reach the top of the boarding ramp and rap smartly on the side of the ship. For a long moment nothing happened, and Winter began to worry that she'd have to wait here for him—then the cockpit door swung upward, and she was greeted by a familiar face.

"Look, kid, this is a _cargo _ship. I don't do transport. Unless you've got..."

Winter dropped her hood. The pilot paled and stumbled backwards into the ship. She stepped inside before he could close the door and folded her arms. Waiting.

"I didn't do anything!" he blurted. She couldn't see through his visor, but he twitched as if he'd just glanced towards the cargo bay.

Winter raised an eyebrow. "Of course," she drawled. "I'm sure you wouldn't dream of carrying illegal Dust in your hold _again."_

"That's right." He tried for a grin.

"Unauthorized passengers, on the other hand..."

"There's nobody on board but me," he said quickly.

"Not yet."

There was a brief silence. He didn't seem to know how to respond to that. "I, uh... look, you can't arrest me for something I haven't even _done _yet."

"No." Winter reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out several lien cards. "But I presume I _can _pay you in advance? I thought about saving the other half for when we get to our destination, but I'm sure you're not stupid enough to make Steele upset."

This time he stood there, staring, for several long seconds. "...Is this a sting?"

Winter rolled her eyes. "Why would I bother when I could just look in your hold? You'll need to clear that out before we go, by the way. Your passenger is rather large."

"I'm not—"

She handed him the lien. He took it automatically, then seemed to realize what he'd just done and made a few token attempts to give it back.

"Be ready to leave in an hour," Winter told him. "If you can sell the Dust in that time, fine. If not, find somewhere to hide it. In the worst case, I've given you plenty to compensate for the loss."

"You can't just—"

"I'd apologize for the inconvenience, but perhaps instead I should just forget to report your _original _cargo to the General when we arrive at the Academy?"

"The Academy," he repeated, incredulous. "I can't go to the—"

"One hour," Winter said, and left the ship.


	76. A Dry Heat

**Happy Friday everyone! This chapter, several heroes try solve the murder-mystery of an unlucky camel, and one succeeds.**

* * *

**76\. A Dry Heat**

* * *

"You are my sunshine—"

"—my only sunshine!"

"You make me—hrk!" Sun stumbled as both Scarlet and Neptune ganged up on him, half-tackling him to the ground. Yang tried to keep singing, but she was laughing so hard she nearly fell over. When the boys started kicking sand everywhere, she had to grab one of Fang's horns so that she could keep standing.

Her dragon shot her a half-amused, half-annoyed look. Yang patted his nose and, when she finally got her breath back, nudged Sun with one foot. "You still alive down there?"

A shaky thumbs-up.

"Cool. We should probably keep going, then." She glanced at Neptune and Scarlet and smirked. "Since some people obviously aren't a fan of gorgeous weather."

"It's over a hundred degrees," Neptune groaned, his voice muffled into Sun's shoulder.

"It's a dry heat!" Yang and Sun both said, at almost the same time.

"Yang?"

She turned around, still grinning. "Yes Bl—uh...?"

Her teammate was pointing at Weiss. More specifically, the look on her face. Her face, which was red and peeling even through a layer of sunscreen and Specter's wing.

It was not a friendly look.

"...Let's keep moving, shall we?" Sun suggested, from where he was still lying on his back and looking more than a little alarmed. He scrambled to his feet and started walking, keeping his eyes forward. They did not finish their fourth rendition of _You are my Sunshine._

Yang heard a muffled snort from somewhere behind her. She turned and let out a theatrical—and _silent—_sigh of relief. Ruby had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing and drawing Weiss' attention.

It was the best thing she'd seen all day. Yang slung an arm over her shoulder and ruffled her hair, wincing only a little when sand scattered everywhere. "Traitor."

Ruby stuck her tongue out at her, and it felt like the sun breaking through the clouds... metaphorically. They hadn't seen a real cloud in a while.

It was brief, though. Soon the smile faded, and she glanced up at the sky. "Do you think Winter will be back soon?"

Yang shrugged. "It's only been a day. It probably took at least that long to fly there in the first place, and it's not like she's just gonna trip over an airship she can use."

"I guess..." Ruby frowned. "How much food do we—"

"We've got plenty," Yang said firmly.

"But what if—"

"Nope."

"—we start running out, and—"

"Nope!"

"Yang!"

"What?" She put on an innocent expression. Ruby slugged her arm. "Okay, _ow. _Someone's getting stronger."

Ruby glanced over her shoulder at Storm. She was preoccupied talking with Fang, their heads leaning close together so that they could chat without the nearby Justice overhearing. "What if we _do _run out?" she murmured. "You guys are gonna have to fly eventually."

Yang patted her head again. "No we're not."

"You can't just—"

"Yeah. I can." Yang gave her shoulder a squeeze. "And I will. We'll make it work, whatever happens. _Plus, _it's way too early to start worrying about the airship. Winter's in the military, she'll find _something."_

"I guess..." Ruby still didn't sound convinced. Considering how bad their luck had been lately, Yang couldn't really blame her.

That didn't mean she wasn't going to use her trump card.

"Who knows? It might even be one of those... what are they called...?"

Ruby narrowed her eyes, as if she suspected this was probably a distraction... but she took the bait anyway. "They're _Squad Carriers__,_ Yang. And there's no way she'd be able to find one of those in Vacuo. Unless she can get one from Atlas? But that would take a while, so it'll probably be a normal transport. Or maybe even a shuttle, if it was big enough..."

Yang listened with a small smile._ Mission accomplished._

* * *

_Quiet._

Nimbus felt his ears twitching, and fought to still them. Every muscle in his body coiled up. Ready... and...

The blurry brown blob that was the hare moved. He tried to pounce on it, but missed—it slipped between his paws and took off running. He bolted after it, leaped over a cactus, slipped on the way down, and wound up on his belly.

A flash of red and orange. Huo had been hunting close by, and turned in time to see the hare. By the time Nimbus blinked the sand out of his eyes—_so much sand!**—**_it was already burnt to a crisp. His brother sniffed at the animal dubiously.

"This is hardly even a mouthful," he complained. Nimbus huffed, and his breath kicked up another cloud of sand. He groaned and pawed at his eyes.

"Hey... Nymph?" Zircon called out, his voice shaking a little. Huo and Nimbus both took off, and ran into their sister as they went. They all met Zircon in a shallow dip between two dunes, each with dry grasses poking up through the sand. And nestled inside...

"Oh, come _on!" _Huo burst out. "All I can find is stupid rabbits! How did you even—?"

A dead animal lay in the depression—a _big _one. Nimbus closed his wandering eye and squinted. Not a dragon, it was too small and there weren't any claws, but it was much taller than Scarlet. Many of the bones were bare, and he was pretty sure something had been eating it, but lots of meat was still there... even if it was all shriveled up.

"I didn't kill it," Zircon said, shuffling his paws nervously. "I just found it."

"How long d'you think it's been dead?" Huo gave it a cautious sniff.

Nymph flicked her tail. "I don't know. It's all dried up, so probably a while." Then, when Huo opened his mouth to bite, she snapped, "Careful! We don't even know what it was!"

"What, are you worried it's a Grimm or something?"

"No, but it might be _poisonous."_

Huo considered that for a moment, then started eating anyway. After a moment's hesitation, so did Nimbus, and the others followed suit. Zircon hesitated a moment longer, though, his ears twitching anxiously. "What killed it, if it wasn't one of us?"

"Maybe hyenas?" Nymph suggested. "Neptune mentioned hearing them last night."

"Wouldn't they eat the whole thing?"

_"Ugh,"_ Huo groaned. The others all jerked back, their ears flattening in alarm, but he only swallowed and licked his chops. "I bet this is what it would be like to eat my _saddle."_

They didn't get to eat their fill, even though there was a lot of meat. Instead they dragged most of the animal back to the others. It went quickly between so many dragons, even though Huo had been right about it tasting like leather. Little Gigas ate at least half his own body weight in one sitting, then curled up in a ball and fell asleep on the spot.

Nimbus also learned that the large animal was called a _camel,_ and that it was very strange for one to be left lying around long enough for it to dry up like that. A few of their riders gave it suspicious looks. Pyrrha stared at it for a very long time, and the look on her face prompted Twiggy to drape a wing over her.

Team SSSN settled down near the edge of their group. Nimbus lay on his side under one of Zircon's wings, with their riders snug between them. "Why do we even have tents anymore?" Scarlet mumbled, already half asleep. "It's not like anyone is using them."

Sage chuckled softly and shifted so that his head was pillowed on one of Zircon's saddlebags.

Silence, for a while. Then Scarlet sighed and said, "Something doesn't feel right about that camel."

"Mm?"

"The carcass must've been old, to be all dried up like that. But the bones weren't all white."

Sage propped himself up on his elbow.

"That's weird, isn't it? The sun's been murder all day, it should've bleached them by now."

"Zircon?" Sage murmured. "Are you awake?"

"Wake."

"When you found those bones, were they in the shade? Maybe buried under some sand?"

"Nno."

Another silence.

"That is odd," Sage said, his voice still rough with sleep.

"And would a hyena really go after a camel?"

Sage yawned. "I don't know. Not alone. Maybe if a pack was hungry enough?"

"But a pack would have eaten the whole thing."

Sage sighed and wrapped an arm around Scarlet. "It's very strange," he agreed, "but let's worry about it in the morning. If there _is _some kind of giant camel-eating monster around, Quake and Steel are keeping watch."

"I guess..."

Scarlet still sounded unconvinced, so Sage kissed him and said, _"Sleep."_

* * *

When Pyrrha left the camp that night, no one stopped her.

She hadn't really meant to go out alone again, but the thought of the dead, suspiciously desiccated camel wouldn't let her rest. Part of her knew she should tell one of the adults, but...

They wouldn't let her go alone. And she knew what the hybrid would think, if a dozen or so dragons came looking for her. She was obviously used to being hunted.

One try. Pyrrha didn't think she'd hurt her, not after they'd met twice, and once under much worse circumstances. She walked in a spiral out from their camp, watching the dunes carefully, looking for any shapes that were out of place.

She was mid-step when she heard the familiar rattling _hiss _behind her. Pyrrha turned, slowly, and knelt with her legs tucked under her, and her palms resting flat against the ground. The hybrid relaxed once she'd taken on a less threatening posture, and stopped hissing. She still eyed her warily, her tail twitching back and forth.

"Hello again," Pyrrha murmured.

Her left ear, the one with the notch in it, flicked acknowledgment.

"It's nice out here, isn't it?" The sky was almost cloudless, and so full of stars that Pyrrha had a hard time looking up without feeling like she was about to fall into it. "Especially for you."

The hybrid snorted, flicked her tail, and made to turn and leave.

"Wait!"

In an instant she tensed, her head whipping around. Ready for the attack. Pyrrha shut her eyes for a moment, to help the hybrid relax. "It's alright. I'm sorry."

A whiff of breath. She opened her eyes again and saw that the dragon was a little further away than she had been, still on her guard.

Pyrrha took a deep breath and said, "You've been following us, then."

Her ears went back. She didn't nod—maybe she hadn't been with her rider long enough to learn how—but the rumbling noise she made sounded affirmative.

"Is... is it because you're lonely?"

The hybrid bared her teeth and snarled. Every spine on her neck stood up, bristling, and her eyes narrowed in to glowing yellow slits.

Pyrrha didn't flinch, but it was a near thing. "I don't think I understand," she said, keeping her voice calm with some effort. "Do you just like the desert? Or are you looking for your—" She cut herself off, a little too late. A growl started deep in the dragon's chest.

Why follow them, if she didn't want company and she didn't want her rider? Surely there had been more food in the forest. Obviously she didn't care for the White Fang, or—

_No. _That wasn't right at all. She didn't care for the _riders _in the White Fang.

Pyrrha's eyes widened. "You're here for Gi—" she blurted, before she could catch up with herself. By the time she closed her mouth, the hybrid's irritated growl had stopped. She was coldly silent as she drew herself up, her back legs tensing.

She sprang forward. Pyrrha dove to the side, rolled, tried to get her feet under her. But kneeling had left her vulnerable—that had been the whole point—and she was still on her hands and knees when she said, "We don't want to—"

A blur of motion. She tried to dodge, but couldn't move fast enough from the ground. The hybrid's tail collided with her stomach, knocking her flat on her back and sending her rolling down the side of a dune.

At the bottom she lay still, gasping for air that wouldn't come. She could hear sounds nearby, but couldn't make any sense of them—everything was still spinning. When she finally got her breath back, for a long time all she could do was cough.

Slowly, stiffly, she pushed herself upright. She listened, but couldn't hear anything that might tell her where the dragon had gone. Pyrrha struggled back up the dune, prepared to be pounced on at any second. Jagged shapes in the sand were suddenly everywhere. Every suspicious shadow might be about to aim its claws at her...

But there was nothing. She stopped at the top, scanning her surroundings, but she couldn't see any movement. There was no sound. Only a series of shallow dips in the sand, forming pools of shadow on moonlit dunes—footprints, heading back the way she had come.

Her heart in her throat, Pyrrha started to run.

* * *

**Okay, so I did some googling and got mixed results as to whether or not hyenas and camels actually live in any of the same places, so I'm going to play the 'it's fiction' card and say that in Vacuo, they do.**


	77. Make Like an Open-Air Market and Stall

**Holy shit, the title fits! :D**

* * *

**77\. Make Like an Open-Air Market and Stall**

* * *

"Tensions are growing on Atlas Dragonry's campus, as Dragonmaster Ironwood continues to block entry to the school. Councilwoman Caroline Cordovan herself has flown out to deescalate the situation..."

James tried not to let his reaction to _that _particular statement show on his face as he stood on the front steps of the Dragonry. One downside to all the cameras everywhere, he supposed... but they were necessary.

"You're going to have to talk to her, you know."

He started and turned around, and found Lisa Lavender standing a few feet behind him. She'd apparently finished speaking for the moment, and the small army of crew members behind her were busy getting footage of the school itself. "You're technically in your rights to ignore her until she comes back with a warrant," the journalist went on, "but you'd look guilty to the public. Having their eyes on you can only protect you as long as they're on your side."

James opened and closed his mouth for a few times, then sighed. "I am aware of that, thank you."

She looked very deliberately casual. "It wouldn't hurt, you know, to keep the conversation nice and open. Just in case things turn nasty."

"Yes," he sighed, "You can film it." No doubt she was here to deliver whatever threats and promises were necessary to open up the school, which she couldn't do with witnesses around.

All the same, he would have preferred to go without reporters swarming him, and found himself wishing for his Grimm-fighting days the moment he picked out Cordovan's small silhouette among the assembled Council riders. By the time she was close enough for him to see her expression—positively _thunderous—_he was thinking wistfully about how much he'd rather fight a fully grown Ursa by himself.

"Good evening," he said as pleasant as he could manage. It was a little after one in the morning—she had doubtless been flying for several hours, and hadn't slept in a long while.

"General." She turned up her nose at the address, and shot him a disdainful look. "This charade has gone on long enough. You will—" Finally, she noticed the cameras and cut herself off with a sneer. "I didn't think you were the sort to _hide, _James."

His polite smile was more of a grimace. "Would you care for a tour of the facilities?" he asked, and took some small satisfaction in the angry flush that crept up her neck.

"No, I would not. I am here to—"

"Make suggestions for how we might improve our campus," he finished. "It would make things easier to see how things are currently run, wouldn't it?"

A twitch started in her left eye. "Yes," she gritted out. "Of course."

He walked agonizingly slowly, pointing out architectural features on every building, and dredging up every last bit of trivia he'd memorized in his years at the school. Cordovan endured it all, though her face went from red to purple when he started introducing her to students more or less at random—all of whom went out of their way to share their _own _useless facts about Atlas Dragonry.

"And it's like, _super _high-tech," Neon Katt said proudly, pointing at the CCT tower that crowned the Academy—and Atlas itself. "You're from Mistral, right? I guess their tower is pretty cool, too."

Cordovan, who had been on the Council when the tower was built, seethed impotently before the news cameras. "I am an _Atlesian _Councilwoman," she gritted out.

"Oh!" Neon broke out in a wide grin. "That's okay, you don't need to be embarrassed! Lots of people who live in Atlas don't know much about the tower!"

Neon then went on to explain how the CCT worked—which James had _also _done, about an hour earlier. Every time Cordovan tried to point this out, Neon just bulled right over her. When her anecdote finally ended, he smiled and said, "Thank you, Neon. Would you like to help me show Councilwoman Cordovan the stables?" And, when he was out of sight of both Cordovan and the cameras, he winked. A large part of being a good general was knowing when to delegate, after all—and this girl had a gift the likes of which he hadn't seen since Qrow Branwen.

Neon jumped on the suggestion with vicious glee, and started rambling on about the mechanisms that were used to heat and cool the stalls, according to different dragons' needs. Her tail flicked back and forth behind her all the while, and the Councilwoman's face twisted and twisted until—

_"I don't care how the stables work!"_ Cordovan shouted, spittle flying in every direction. Neon drew back. James thought he saw real alarm on her face and winced.

"Um, okay?" She glanced at James.

"My apologies, Miss Katt," he said neutrally—and made a mental note to give her a proper apology later. "Perhaps you should return to your teammates."

"Teammate," she corrected, with a lopsided grin that didn't hide the flash of anger in her eyes. Then she was off, and James was left alone with a fuming Cordovan... and a small army of cameras, which had caught the entire scene.

"You are a guest here," he said levelly. "I am happy to help in any way that I can, but I will _not _tolerate abuse of my students, or their dragons."

"I see," she said, through gritted teeth. "You're one of _those, _then."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean," James said—and started on another tangent, to waste as much of this woman's time as was humanly possible.

* * *

Sand under her paws. Cool wind rushing past her, the ground rolling up and down as she darted from dune to dune. And the smell of dragons getting steadily stronger.

She shouldn't have killed the big animal. Should have realized that it would tip them off. It had almost tripped over her, though, and she hadn't eaten anything bigger than a rabbit in days. Temptation had overwhelmed her. Then those other dragons had stolen her kill...

But they'd shared it with Gigas.

Her run stuttered, and she shook her head to clear it. The redheaded one would recover soon, and she would go to warn the rest of them. She'd been waiting for the right time to try to free the others, and there obviously wasn't going to be a better one than right now.

That meant she only had until she reached their camp to figure out what to do about the Lieutenant. If she freed him, he'd go back to the rest of the Fang and help them bring the evil place back. If she didn't, she had to convince Gigas to go. Somehow.

And what about Justice? Would Ilia stay with him, if she freed them, or would she run away again? No. He'd go with her if she ran. He'd be... safe.

Alone with a rider. Maybe alone like she was, if he got too _inconvenient._

She hissed, cursing the red-haired one for forcing her to move now. She wasn't _ready..._ but she wouldn't have been ready tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe ever. She'd just have to move fast, take advantage of their surprise, and—

Sounds pricked her ears. She slowed, dropping low as she wound her way through the dunes. A bellow went up, followed by dozens of exclamations of fear and surprise. Too distant to make out any words. She picked up the pace.

The whole group was awake when she approached—but whatever had disturbed them, it wasn't her. None of them were even looking outward. She got close without being seen, easily, and draped herself flat against one of the dunes, shaking herself to let the sand cover her. Only her eyes, narrowed to slits, would be visible.

All the activity surrounded what looked like a leather bag. The old earth dragon fretted over it, warbling uncertainly, while his blond rider scrambled in another bag.

"Shit, shit, shit!" A grey-haired man paced back and forth in front of the bag, his red eyes wild. "Do we even know what the hell it is?!"

A girl in white was kneeling in front of the bag. She moved, then, and revealed an egg lying in the sand. It gleamed a pearly blue-grey in the moonlight. Sharp claws flexed, sending more sand skittering down the side of the dune.

"Water, maybe?" the girl suggested. She shifted again, and her long ponytail obscured the egg from view.

More people swarmed around them. She caught frantic snatches—and two names, "Glynda," and "Pyrrha," always in low, half-fearful tones.

_Everyone is looking at the egg._ Now would be the time—but she stayed still, frozen, her eyes locked on the silvery-blue shell. Remembering the lifeless eyes that watched her. _"Again."_

The muttering peaked in a frantic shout, "Where's Pyrrha?!"

Her ears went back. That must be the red-haired one—_oops._

A brittle _snap._ "No time!" the blond man said. "Go look for her, but we need—Glynda?"

Another woman approached, moving very slowly, her hands clenched into fists. A round man patted her shoulder and murmured something. "Of course I can," she snapped, and glared at him.

_Snap._ The girl in white leaned forward, and the egg came into view again. A long crack ran down its side. The dragonet's nose broke through into open air, squealing pitifully. Liquid dripped from the egg—it was thick, and shone like silver in the moonlight. The dragonet that tumbled from the shell looked as though it was made from the same stuff, if it were tinted blue.

The woman, Glynda, knelt down and spoke softly. Quiet murmurs that tugged one something inside, until she yearned to bite something. But she didn't move, didn't make a sound, even though no one was paying any attention to their surroundings.

Another little squeal. The hatchling lifted his head. His eyes welled up. More silver liquid beaded and ran down his snout, dripping onto the sand. The woman reached a hand out to stroke his head—and pulled back sharply with a muffled noise.

"Glynda?" The round man half-rose.

She rocked back on her heels, clutching her wrist. "Gloves," she gritted out.

"If you can't—I'm sure someone can—"

"No." She snapped her fingers at the blond man, but her eyes never left the dragonet. "This is... something's wrong."

Her ears went flat against her head. Something was wrong, so they fetched gloves. Her hiss was low and soft, and no one noticed.

"Wrong?" The round man reached out.

"Don't touch him," Glynda snapped. Then, more softly, "That liquid... it's poisonous."

"What?!" The girl in white stiffened. "Professor, you—"

"I'm perfectly fine. _Tai."_

The blond man, Tai, finished fumbling in another of the bags and tossed her a pair of gloves. Then he plunged back in.

As soon as she was wearing the gloves, Glynda drew the shivering dragonet closer, stroking his back and supporting him when his legs gave out. Tai put on his own pair and joined her, and soon there were several of them kneeling in a circle around him, murmuring quietly and petting him now that they were protected by the leather. He squealed again, took a little of the food they offered him, and retched it up.

A few minutes later he went very quiet and still, curled up in a pool of glittering silver sand.

Glynda lurched to her feet, then stumbled. The round man moved to steady her and murmured something. "I'm dizzy, that's all." She waved him away and left the group, still walking unsteadily.

Everyone else was frozen with shock—except for three humans and three dragons, who were still moving frantically around the camp, looking for Pyrrha.

_Now._

A shudder went through her, displacing more sand.

_Do it now._

Her insides had turned to ice-water, freezing and burning all at once.

_Before they recover._

She might not have found it in herself to move—but Gigas chose that moment to let out an inquisitive chirp. Riders and dragons alike scrambled to get in between him and the dead hatchling, and even the Lieutenant looked shaken and subdued.

They were looking right at him, but it didn't matter. She'd fight all of them if she had to. She couldn't find it in herself to care if she lost.

She exploded out of her hiding place in a dead sprint. The ones still clustered around the egg were nearest—the round man lurched out of her way with a cry of surprise, and she jumped over the girl in white's head. Then her eyes met the Lieutenant's, and he lifted his unbandaged hand to point at her.

"You!"

A roar tore itself from her chest. An earth dragon near Gigas yelped and leaped back. The Lieutenant roared back, "That thing's a killer! Get it the hell out of here, kill it!"

Gigas' head whipped around, hurt showing clear in his eyes, and he nipped his rider hard on the ankle. That set him swearing, still trying to stand to face her. He'd just gotten most of the way to his feet when she knocked him down with her tail and whirled to face Gigas—but there was a water dragon in her way, now, flaring her wings and bellowing a challenge.

More all around her. She'd made a mistake, going for Gigas first—she slipped between two fire dragons, to indignant snarls, and bolted towards Justice. There was only one dragon guarding him, but it was the big ice dragon, all muscle and sinew and needle-sharp spines. He lashed out at her, but Justice had gotten to his feet and bulled into the enemy's side. Then they were together, running for where Ilia was watching the entire thing with her mouth hanging open.

"Lah!"

"What's going on?" Gigas warbled. "Why is everyone fighting?"

The earth dragon from before picked him up by his scruff and bolted. Justice snarled and chased after him, and he shot a frantic look over his shoulder, his eyes wide and white with terror.

"Hey!" Gigas protested, wiggling in his grip. "Wait! Put me down!"

She put on a burst of speed and leaped, her wings flapping once to let her reach his back. There she clung with her claws while he ran wildly in every direction, trying to buck her off.

_"Zircon!"_

And then _pain._ She rolled onto her back with water streaming down her sides, sending a horrible burning itch crawling all the way up her spine. The water evaporated as she flexed her powers and blew a dry gust directly into the face of a snarling water dragon. She ducked away, covering her eyes with her paw, and then the fire dragons had caught them and one of them fixed her with a murderous glare, and she bolted.

Claws reached for her. She ducked and weaved, and all around her riders were scrambling onto dragonback. The element of surprise was slipping away...

_There._ A human still on the ground, calling out to a wind dragon on the other side of the melee. He looked up as she approached—threw himself sideways, much too late, she gathered her legs underneath her to pounce—

"Wait!"

—and pulled up short as the red-haired human flung herself between them. She was flushed, panting hard from the run there, but she stood her ground in the face of a low, threatening hiss.

One of the fire dragons, black with lines of fire tracing along his scales, moved towards her. Pyrrha held up her hands and shouted, "Don't hurt her!" He stopped, more out of confusion than anything else, an aborted fireball oozing out the sides of his mouth.

She let her spines stand on end, her tail flexing and her wings flaring, daring the little human to try and fight her again. It was hopeless, she knew, there were more than twelve of them against only her and Justice, but she didn't care anymore.

"We're taking him away," Pyrrha said, gesturing towards the Lieutenant. "He's part of the group that made you, but they—their lab—"

She growled.

"You know, then." The human relaxed slightly. "We can't let him go, or he'll go back to them. But we know it isn't Gigas' fault, and we won't let anyone hurt him."

It was so destabilizing hearing her own worries echoed in the language of the riders that she took a little step back. When she glanced at Justice, he was still snarling at the nearest dragon, a wind dragon covered in gleaming silver armor.

They must have noticed her looking, because Ilia herself stepped forward next. "I'm staying here on purpose," she said. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. "I can't... I can't help them anymore."

"Stop it!" Justice roared at her. "Stop saying that!"

"I'm sorry." She hunched in on herself, avoiding looking at him, or the Lieutenant, or anyone else.

"Gigas," she barked. He looked up at her from where he hung in the jaws of the terrified earth dragon.

"Big one," he said, his stubby tail wagging. Then, slowly, it stopped. "Did you really bite Ur—the Lieutenant?"

She wasn't guilty. She _wasn't._

"Didn't bite." She shot him a venomous glare. "Scratched."

Gigas wilted before her eyes. The earth dragon put him down and nuzzled at him, and she—

Sand flew under her paws. Pyrrha took a step forward, one hand extended as if to reach for her—but she didn't pursue. No one did.

The next morning they were gone. And, in the spot where they had been, there was a small patch of displaced earth. She sniffed at it, and dug down until she found the little body wrapped in cloth, a squashed and withered flower tucked behind his head.

She wasn't sure why they'd buried him, but she put him back there anyway. It was hot and dry, and he smelled a little like a water dragon. Maybe he'd have wanted to be out of the sun for a while.

* * *

"Glynda?"

She grimaced and pressed the heel of her palm against her temple. So much for the hope that Peter would have been distracted by the skirmish, earlier.

"I'm fine," she bit out.

He heaved a put-upon sigh and walked around Pepper, so that her bulk was no longer separating them. "I've heard you say that quite often over the years, and never once have you _actually _been fine."

She considered arguing the point, but before she could get any words out her stomach twisted into a painful knot, and the capacity for speech deserted her. He sat down a few feet away and offered her... a biscuit.

"I find it settles the stomach."

Glynda couldn't even look at it—she had no desire whatsoever to throw up in front of her students.

Peter peered at her again, looking if anything even more worried. "Setting aside emotional well-being for the moment... do we need to fly you to Vacuo?"

"No." Cupping her palms around her eyes helped, partly because it blocked out the light and partly because she wasn't in the mood to see his expression. "It isn't any better, but it's stopped getting worse."

One touch. No wonder the dragonet had died so quickly.

"Glynda—"

"I think I'll go to bed." She got up, then had to lean heavily on Pepper's side as the world bucked and spun. Her tent, which was pitched about twenty feet away, might as well have been on the moon.

Pepper lifted a wing in open invitation. Panic gripped her, and she managed a few shaky steps before the dragon coiled around—offering, this time, one of her horns for her to lean on as she walked. She had no choice but to take it, and to wave off the frightened looks of the students who saw her.

Once inside, and free of the others' concern, she let herself go limp. She felt wrung out, like a damp towel. Those frantic minutes after Quake's first warning, dreading the hatching and knowing the hatchling probably wouldn't survive. Knowing, too, that she wasn't ready, terrified of another perfect little creature tumbling out of the egg and needing something she didn't think she could give. Thinking not wanting it would make it easier.

Then, the instant she'd touched him... the fear and doubt and grief had only sharpened, but despite all of it she'd _wanted _him. Only to feel the horrible leaden numbness in her fingertips and _know _that he was going to die.

Glynda drew an arm across her face and took deep, slow breaths, fighting down another surge of nausea. For several long, horrible seconds, she teetered on the edge of coming apart. She kept breathing, and the moment passed. It wasn't time, yet—she could imagine all too well what would have happened if she'd snapped tonight, when she knelt before the egg. Like _hell _would she put Pyrrha Nikos through all that.

Still. She had her limits.

_If Winter doesn't get back here before the next one hatches, I'm going to handcuff her and Qrow together and throw away the key._


	78. Question

**Hello, and happy Friday! This chapter, pilot boi has a couple of concerns, and Pyrrha has a question.**

* * *

**78\. Question**

* * *

The next morning was very quiet. Sage made sure to soothe Zircon, who had gone to sleep shaking last night after being chased around by the hybrid. It was hard to know what to do with himself once all his and Scarlet's things were packed up—he pretended to be very interested in one of the straps on Zircon's saddle, so that he would stop glancing at Pyrrha and Professor Goodwitch.

At least their professor was better this morning. At least, she could walk in a straight line, instead of stumbling and leaning on Pepper. She didn't eat very much, but neither did anyone else except for Gigas. The memory of the dead hatchling was too fresh.

By mid-afternoon they were sweltering in the desert sun. Sage was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other that he hardly noticed the glint on the horizon until Scarlet grabbed his hand and pointed. Both of them squinted uselessly into the distance.

It looked... shiny.

Yang let out a delighted whoop. Scarlet watched the oncoming airship with a bit more suspicion, until it got close enough for them to make out Steele pacing alongside it through the glare. He and the airship landed just in front of them. The hatch banged open, revealing an empty hold and a harassed-looking man Sage didn't recognize.

"All aboard," he said, without enthusiasm. Then he froze, and slowly raised his visor to reveal eyes wide with shock. "I told you I could fit a dragon or two!" he burst out, "Not—gods, how many of you are there?!"

"You'll only need to take two on board," Winter told him, nodding towards Storm and Gigas. "The rest of us will fly alongside you."

"To Atlas."

She glared at him. "I thought I made this _very _clear."

The pilot raised both hands. "You're the boss, I guess, but... someone's definitely gonna notice that."

"We'll _manage," _she snapped. "Ruby, you and Storm should go first."

Ruby nodded and jogged towards the open door, with Storm loping along behind her. The Lieutenant followed much more slowly. Gigas immediately started sniffing around the inside of the cargo hold.

"Miss Nikos?" Professor Goodwitch prompted. "If you'd like to join them...?"

Sage looked around, and found Pyrrha hesitating. She backed up a few steps. "Yes. I only—there's something I need to do first."

Winter stared at her. "Speed is of the—"

But Pyrrha was already walking away, and waving off Jaune's attempt to join her. "I'll just be a moment!" she promised over her shoulder.

Somehow, that wasn't very reassuring.

* * *

"Hello?"

She curled up into a ball in a shallow dip between dunes and put her paws over her ears. It didn't block out the sound of footsteps, or of that _stupid _voice calling for her.

What could the human want, anyway? She'd tried to free Gigas and Justice, and she'd failed. Now she wasn't even sure if she should want them free. Which didn't matter anyway, because she couldn't get them away from a whole flock of much older dragons who knew she was coming.

She lay her head down on the ground. It seemed like far too much effort to pick it up, and she didn't feel like getting into another fight. Especially since attacking the human didn't vent her frustration like the Grimm did—she couldn't go all out unless she wanted to really hurt her, and she couldn't actually _hit _her if she was being careful. She'd just stay here until she got bored and went away.

But then the voice grew distant, and she felt a sharp pain in her chest that had nothing to do with the fight from the previous night. Her head came up without conscious thought, poking over the dunes and scanning her surroundings. It was easy to pick out the bright red hair, moving off into the distance. The human glanced around and spotted her.

She approached slowly, picking her way up and down the dunes, and finally sat cross-legged about twenty feet away with her hands clasped in her lap. Yet another position that meant she wouldn't be able to fight or run away if she needed to—but by now she was used to this oddly reckless human, and barely noticed.

"I'm sorry about last night," Pyrrha said softly. She hissed, but the human kept talking as if she hadn't heard the noise. "We're going, now. Out of the desert. A friend of ours found a ship that can carry Storm."

_Good._ Her tail lashed back and forth, and she forced it still. This place was much nicer than the forest, with lots of sunlight and no hidden streams. When they were gone she'd have it all to herself.

Except for the Grimm, of course.

"We're going to fight the Council. They're... well, there isn't really time to explain it properly, but they're the ones who handle laws about dragons. They..." She hesitated. "They cull hatchlings, if they have problems, and they made hybrids illegal. A lot of our dragons are in danger from them, so we need to do something to stop them."

She cocked her head. She'd never heard of any council before, except maybe the one with Sienna, the Lieutenant, the Albains, and Ilia—and she doubted that was what Pyrrha meant.

"It's... like the lab, I suppose. They're doing something we think is wrong, so we're going to try to stop it."

Why tell her this? The evil tent was gone, but they were only going to rebuild it somewhere else—and since she'd followed Justice and Gigas, she didn't know which way they'd gone. What was she supposed to do about this Council?

"Do you want to come with us?"

She was so startled that she reared up on her hind legs, her wings flaring. Pyrrha jumped, but stayed where she was. Waiting for an answer.

No one had ever _asked _before.

Warily, she circled Pyrrha. Sniffed her. Sweat and leather and a distant hint of smoke. She still couldn't figure out what the trick was. She turned her back. There was a slight intake of breath behind her, the tiniest sound of disappointment... but still, no knives. No nets.

Finally she stopped pacing and sat, her tail twined around her legs, only a few feet away. Pyrrha looked up, wide-eyed, and stayed perfectly still as hot, dry breath stirred her hair. Slowly, she rumbled agreement. A smile broke across the human's face, and she had to look away.

She would stay with the one who asked, for now. But the _second _she sensed any hint of a trap... well. It wouldn't hurt to leave this one behind.

* * *

Jaune waited for Pyrrha to come back, fidgeting anxiously and exchanging glances with Twiggy. He knew they were both itching to run off after her... but she knew what she was doing. Which was good, because _he_ definitely didn't.

Especially not when she returned, walking a few steps in front of the rogue hybrid that had attacked them all the night before. The same dragon that had left long scratches across her back that had only just scabbed over. He tensed. Twiggy dropped into a crouch, ready to pounce, the hybrid drew itself up and bared its teeth—

"It's alright!" Pyrrha said hurriedly, stepping in front of the dragon. "She isn't here to fight."

The hybrid's eyes narrowed. It didn't exactly _look _like she was just here for a quick chat and a bite of camel jerky.

Winter stared at them both in open shock. "Where and _how _did you find a wild dragon out here?" she demanded. "Is that—" Then she paused, shot a venomous look towards the Lieutenant, and said, "I see."

"I asked, and she agreed to come with us."

No one spoke for a long moment. The hybrid noticed the tension and hissed again, flaring her wings slightly. Pyrrha murmured something to her. She didn't relax.

"You cannot be serious," Winter said flatly, when the request had sunk in. "We can't bring a White Fang dragon into this fight."

To Jaune's shock, Goodwitch shook her head and said, "She isn't a White Fang dragon. She isn't bonded to anyone."

"And, what, you think this is a good idea? The risk simply isn't worth it for a dragon that's only half-grown."

At that, Qrow stifled a snort.

"Is something _funny?"_

"No!" He waved his hands, but couldn't get the smirk off his face. "I'm just saying, Gigas is a hell of a lot younger, and he was a pain in the ass to fight."

Twiggy made an indignant noise. Jaune hesitated. He didn't want to argue with Pyrrha, especially in front of everyone, but...

"She _attacked_ you, though!" Nora burst out.

"It isn't like that!"

The hybrid, meanwhile, wasn't even trying to look friendly. Her teeth were very sharp, and she loomed over Pyrrha while fixing them with a wary, predatory stare.

Finally, Goodwitch snapped, "Enough!"

The argument, which by now had drawn in almost everyone, came to a screeching halt.

"I don't hear any alternatives," Goodwitch said, "aside from leaving a riderless hybrid wild in the Vacuan desert, and completely vulnerable to the Council should she be noticed."

The dragon herself hissed. She seemed offended by the idea that anyone would notice her if she didn't want them to.

But Jaune... couldn't find it in himself to argue with that. They could bring the hybrid along, keep a close eye on her in case she got aggressive with Pyrrha again, and find somewhere safer for her to live as soon as they could.

Still, as Storm and Ruby boarded the airship, he couldn't help asking, "Are you sure?"

Pyrrha glanced over her shoulder at the hybrid. "I am."

He wanted to say something else, but before he could figure out what, Professor Goodwitch approached them and cleared her throat. "I doubt she could carry you, even if she wanted to, but the two of you should fit inside the hold." She gestured towards the ship.

Instantly the hybrid readied herself to pounce, her eyes narrowing to slits.

"You don't have to!" Pyrrha said quickly. "You can fly alongside it if you like. That's what everyone else is doing."

Warily, the hybrid rose out of her crouch and shot a hostile glare towards the airship. Then, when Pyrrha moved towards it, she put a paw down in her way, making Jaune's heart jump painfully in his chest.

"Um..."

Pyrrha backed away, and the hybrid relaxed. But when she made as if to board again, the dragon blocked her again, this time with her tail.

"You don't want me in the ship," Pyrrha guessed.

No response from the hybrid, except to drop her tail. She did let Pyrrha mount up behind Tai on Quake, and flew overhead as everyone else took off. Twiggy didn't need Jaune's nudge of the reins to keep close beside Quake, and they both watched the hybrid circle lazily above them.

"It's okay," he told Twiggy, though he knew he was reassuring himself as much as his dragon. "We'll keep an eye on them."

* * *

The woods outside Beacon were dark, and eerily silent. Mercury slid from Rudder's back as quietly as he could. Emerald jumped off, and still somehow managed not to make a sound. There was probably a joke in there somewhere that would annoy her, but he didn't have the energy to look for it.

It had been three days, and Jade still wouldn't stop _looking _at him. Like he was gonna bolt the second she turned her back on him for a second.

Not that he wasn't tempted...

"Where the hell is Tyrian?" he muttered. "He should be here by now."

"We're too close. She said he'd be at the bottom of the cliffs, but I didn't want to fly under the canopy in the dark."

Mercury sighed. "Great. All the best hikes have a freak waiting at the—" he cut off as she elbowed him hard in the gut. Before he got the breath back to swear at her, he heard a noise off towards the campus.

"Is someone there?"

He rolled his eyes. What did this jackass think they were gonna do, say yes?

"Oh for—do you smell anyone or _not?"_ There was a sharp snap as something cut through the air, and a yelp.

_Oh. Shit._

He and Emerald scrambled back into the dark as quickly as they dared, careful not to step on any twigs. Jade and Rudder struggled to follow.

The same voice again. Male, an arrogant drawl. "Go _check, _then."

A series of shuffling noises, as something forced its way through the undergrowth. At the same time, a light swept the trees. Mercury ducked down instinctively, but it was still too far away to reach them through all the leaves. He caught a glimpse of a teenaged boy with a flashlight, his red-brown hair swept up into a carefully trimmed peak.

He wasn't a problem—he didn't even move from where he was standing, and in seconds they were well out of sight of him. But the shuffling in the undergrowth followed them for a long time before the boy finally let out a frustrated growl and said, "Fuck, how useless are you? Just get back here already."

Emerald didn't stop shooting filthy looks over her shoulder until they found the path that led down the cliffside. Mercury was pretty sure this was at least as dangerous as flying in and way slower, but they made it to the bottom without either of them breaking their necks. The sound of a waterfall blocked out any further sound from the student that had almost caught them—and it meant that they didn't hear anything from Tyrian until he popped up out of a small dip in the ground.

Mercury just managed to keep himself from jumping in surprise. Instead he turned and folded his arms. Tyrian was leaning back against a bed of soft moss, with Ozone curled up on his chest. "You look comfortable."

His smile stretched all the way across his face. "There you two are. Ozone and I have been sleeping here, waiting for you."

At the sound of her name, the dragon opened one eye and yawned hugely. Sparks jumped between her pointed fangs. She was getting too big now to sit on his shoulders, but he picked her up anyway and carried her against his chest as he stood up.

Emerald took a step back when he stepped a bit too close to them, but he didn't seem to notice. Mercury grimaced and said, "So? What's the plan?"

Tyrian started to giggle—and didn't stop.

Mercury exchanged a look with Emerald—frustrated on his end, disgusted on hers. Both of them resigned, at this point.

Tyrian kept giggling.


	79. Headmaster

**Hello again! This chapter, Glynda Goodwitch pulls no punches, and Ozone has some memory trouble.**

* * *

**79\. Headmaster**

* * *

_Thank you again for the leave, sir. I'm feeling much better now, and should be back in a few more days._

_Unfortunately, my .24 was damaged a few hours into my flight, and I'll need to replace it when I return._

James blinked at the message. Winter did not own a weapon that fired rounds that size—and she should only be messaging if she'd found them, and if that were the case then why would it take so long to... _Ah._

He leaned back. Twenty-four hours, if he'd read the hidden message correctly. If he could just hold out that much longer, they'd be in a much better position to convince the Council to leave. Cordovan _probably _wouldn't pick a fight if she was outnumbered.

As if summoned by the sound of her name, one of his students knocked on his office door. He gave Flynt a grateful nod as he strode past him towards the courtyard. "Cordovan?" he asked, and the boy nodded.

Grimacing, he crossed out into open sunlight. Most of the students were outdoors, their dragons lounging in the grass, as if to tell the world how unconcerned they were. But quite a few of them were tense, even if they hid it a little better than the Council's dragons. All of them had the tight, drawn look of dragons that knew they were about to be given an order they wouldn't like.

"This has gone on far too long," Cordovan announced, puffing herself up as if she was trying to tower over him, despite the fact that she barely came up to his elbow.

"It is unfortunate, how slowly bureaucracy moves," James said, and tried not to smirk at the way her eye twitched. "I would suggest—" he paused just a moment, so that a nearby camera could turn to face them fully, "—that the Council consider performing an inspection of the student's dragons, as they originally intended, and putting aside the matter of protection until more riders can be spared for the task."

"And _I _will suggest that you quit _stalling, _James," Cordovan snapped, heedless of the cameras pointed at her. She even shot a glare towards them. "You seem very eager to turn a matter of students' protection into a fight."

"Not at all." He tried to smile Ozpin's inscrutable, infuriating smile, and judging by the look on her face he'd gotten close. "I only think that those dragons could be better deployed elsewhere. To be frank, we are not in danger here—but recent unrest has brought Grimm to outlying settlements, and we don't have enough dragons to repel them as it is."

Her eyes narrowed. "So you say... though you seem to be missing quite a few students."

James tried not to grimace, but his smile felt transparently fake. "They were unsettled by the prospect—"

"Of an open rebellion against the Council," Cordovan snapped, going in for the kill. James was suddenly very conscious of the cameras surrounding them. "I'm sure these..." she sneered at the nearest journalist, "_fine _people will be able to track them down and ask them why _exactly _they don't feel safe in this institution."

It was all he could do not to swear out loud. Part of the reason he'd been keen to keep as many students outside as possible was to hide the chunk of missing students... but it had always been a matter of time before she caught on.

"Some members of the student body preferred to avoid a confrontation, even an indirect one," he said, letting a hint of steel into his own voice to match hers. "After the events at Beacon, you can hardly blame them."

Cordovan went back to fuming, at that—but he could see a terrible spark in the eyes of the crowd of reporters, and knew that even if _most _of the students felt that way... it would only take one who didn't.

* * *

The hold of the cargo ship was dark and windowless, with only a few flickering lights, about half of which were blocked by Storm's head. Ilia sat in one corner with her knees against her chest, trying not to look at Ruby or the professor. Or the Lieutenant.

He at least seemed content to ignore her in favor of petting Gigas, who was curled up in his lap and humming contentedly. Glynda, meanwhile, was keeping a wary eye on both him and Ilia. She wasn't sure _why. _Justice was outside, and she couldn't do much of anything on her own like this. Especially when _she _hadn't wanted any of this to happen in the first place. It was Blake who'd decided it would be a good idea to double back to the Fang camp, not her.

"Do you think we'll get back in time, Professor?" Ruby asked.

"Hard to say. It depends how well James has managed to stall them, and how quickly this ship can fly. I don't know if it was designed to handle this much weight. Or exactly how far we are from Atlas Dragonry."

"Oh." Ruby sat back against Storm's chest. Then she started fidgeting and shooting glances towards the Lieutenant. He was glaring sullenly at everyone else in the ship, except for little Gigas, and the hostility radiating from him seemed to be making her uncomfortable.

"So... uh, Ilia."

She fought the urge to groan. All she wanted was to sit, in _silence, _for however long it took to get to Atlas. Once they were there she was sure they'd lock her up, or worse, and Justice...

"What?" she snapped.

"Do you know that dragon? The one that's coming with Pyrrha?" Storm perked up with interest. So, though he tried to hide it, did Gigas.

"Yeah," Ilia said shortly. "She hatched in the lab."

"Then... did something happen to her rider?"

"No. She ran off."

Even Glynda took an interest, at that. "Ran off?"

Ilia shrugged. "Yeah. She hid out in the woods, stole food and broke things."

She half-expected the Lieutenant to react to that—he'd thought it was her, the last time they were on speaking terms—but he didn't. Of _course _they'd realized who the real saboteur was right after they chased her off.

Storm curled protectively around Ruby—even Gigas croaked and burrowed his head into the Lieutenant's armpit. Ruby's voice was a little shaky when she asked Glynda, "Is that... I didn't think dragons would do that."

"They normally don't." Glynda grimaced. "We can only guess _why,_ but if her rider mistreated her before the bond had a chance to form, perhaps...?"

"Sienna didn't hurt her!" Ilia burst out.

"Quiet," the Lieutenant growled. It was the first time he'd spoken to her since she left, an admonishment for leaking secrets.

Which was stupid. Blake knew her too, it wasn't a secret. Most of their members were probably compromised by now.

...Well, all the ones Blake knew by name, which might not actually be that many. She wasn't exactly a social butterfly.

"Someone must have," Ruby said. "I only know one who left her rider on purpose, and that was only after he'd been mistreating her for almost a year. They don't just stop caring about their riders for no reason!"

"What the fuck do _you _know?" Ilia snarled. "We hardly had _any _healthy dragonets hatch, we didn't mistreat them!"

The younger girl gave her an uncharacteristically cold look and said, "Maybe she found the lab."

Ilia lurched to her feet. "Shut up!"

"Enough!" Glynda's voice cracked like a whip, and Gigas twanged in alarm and hid inside the Lieutenant's shirt again. Her expression softened a little at the sight. "Not you," she said, much more kindly—but she was all steel again when she looked at Ilia. "I think it would be best if you didn't talk."

Ilia went bright red with fury. "So, what, I'm the enemy now? I didn't tell Justice to do that! I didn't _want _him to do that!"

"That is _quite _clear," Glynda said icily. "As is the fact that you've been paying very little attention to what _he _wants. Small wonder you can't predict what he'll do."

She couldn't think of a response to that, or at least none that would satisfy the professor, so she went back to sitting silently in her corner. It was ridiculous—she'd _told _Justice why they had to leave. She'd always explained everything to him. He just never _listened._

* * *

Tyrian led the way back to Beacon—or rather, Ozone did, her electric blue eyes glowing eerily in the near-dark.

They gave the area where the student had been a wide berth, and were careful to stick to the woods where the patrolling dragons wouldn't see them. If this was what their security was like _after _at least two break-ins, Emerald wasn't surprised Adam had pretty much waltzed right in.

Knowing Tyrian, she half-expected him to start giggling at the worst possible moment—but he was almost as quiet as she was, even with Ozone cradled against his chest. They stopped when they were as close as they could get to their destination, but there was still a fire barn and the cafeteria between them and the hatchery.

At that point, they had to leave Rudder and Jade behind. Emerald was reluctant to do it, but... well, Mercury was decent at stealth. A dragon whose weight was measured in tons, not so much.

They inched closer by stages, keeping to the shadows. Tyrian finally set Ozone down and let her follow them. Once, he sent her to scout ahead, and when she returned she tapped a pattern in the dirt with her forepaws. He cooed at her and rubbed her head. "That's it," he murmured. "You're starting to remember."

She bumped her nose against his hand, then led them into the shadows of the building they wanted. This one had its own dedicated guard. Mercury disappeared around the side of the building. There was a quiet thump, and he leaned out to gesture for them to follow.

"I'm afraid this is where I leave you," Tyrian said, with his too-wide smile. He held his arms out, and Ozone jumped into them, coiling her tail around his waist.

"Cinder said—" Mercury started, and Tyrian waved him quiet.

"Yes, yes, your instructions." He pointed to the door. "Go in, and destroy everything."

"What?" Emerald blurted. "But we—"

Mercury grabbed her arm, hard. "How are we supposed to break incubators without a dragon?" he asked, shooting her a quelling look. She pulled away from him with a glare.

Tyrian giggled and opened his coat. Inside were several neat, gleaming rows of Dust bombs.

Mercury gaped at him. Then he scowled. "We're a distraction."

"I have my own business to attend to," Tyrian said cheerfully. He leaned much too close to Mercury, so that they were almost nose-to-nose, and pressed the coat into his hands. "I'll message you when it's time to light the fireworks, hmm?"

And with that, he vanished into the darkness.

Mercury exhaled, the sound harsh in the sudden silence, and pushed open the door. "C'mon."

"We can't blow up eggs!" Emerald protested. They stepped into a fluorescent-lit room, wall-to-wall incubators, all of them with eggs of various colors nestled inside.

Mercury grabbed her by the shoulders. "Think, Emerald. These are going to all the students the old man wouldn't give an egg, the ones who are happy to be here now that there's locks on the barns. We wouldn't be doing 'em any favors by leaving them here."

She shrugged him off so violently that he stumbled into the nearest incubator, jostling its precious contents. "Fuck off," she snarled. "That's bullshit and you know it."

"Alright!" He threw his hands up in frustration. "It's bullshit! What do you want me to say?"

"Cinder wouldn't want this." She paced back and forth in front of the eggs, glancing at them every so often, her gut clenching. "Tyrian wants us for some distraction, he could've gone off on his own!"

"It's a test, Em. That's why she didn't warn us."

"She wouldn't _do _that!"

Mercury leaned against the counters and put his head in his hands. It struck her for the first time how tired he looked—tired, but not surprised. "Fuck. If you can't do it, I'll—"

"No!" Emerald snarled. "That's not _better, _and I'm not an idiot!"

He sighed. "Fine. Fine!" He pushed himself off the counter and hefted Tyrian's coat, retrieving a detonator from one of the pockets. "I'll put it in the back. But if we're doing this, you're going to lie about it."

She opened her mouth to protest, but the look on his face stopped her.

"You lie to her fucking _face _if you have to, got it?"

Emerald bit her lip. There had to be some way she could bring it up without risking giving them away. And Cinder would be angry with Tyrian, and maybe even angry at them, until they explained that they'd known all along and faked the whole thing.

"Got it," she said, and set to work.

* * *

Scarred fingers jabbed forward, held in the signal to look ahead.

An anxious knot curled in the pit of Ozone's stomach—but she trotted forward, her mind already spinning with the signals she would need.

There wasn't much around the corner of the building. She stayed half-hidden in the grass, watching a dragon and his human standing guard outside the door. Once she was sure they were alone, she retreated to Tyrian's side.

She tapped out the sign for one pair with her paws. He made more motions—a question, but not one she'd seen before.

_No, _she scolded herself. She _had _seen it before. She should know it, but she could only stare blankly at him and watch as he realized she had no idea what he was saying. He didn't yell. He never did, but the flash of anguish in his eyes was much, much worse.

It was only there for an instant before he was smiling again. "Are they moving?" he whispered. "Pacing back and forth?"

She tapped out the signal for "no" and waited while he typed a message on his scroll. Then he held up three fingers, lowering one after the other until—

_Bang!_

A plume of smoke rose from the distant hatchery. Ozone ignored the uneasy churning in her stomach and joined her rider as he scuttled closer to the building. The guard pair sprinted into the dark, the human cursing loud enough to cover the sound of their footsteps.

Then they were inside. It was strangely still and silent, this late at night. Most of the people who worked here during the day were long gone—all except the one man who lived in the tower.

A ding. The elevator lit up, a green light above it blinking slowly as it descended from above. Tyrian beckoned her to follow as he moved to one side of the doors. They waited. Ozone's heart fluttered in her chest, and she had to restrain herself from winding around her rider's feet for comfort, in case she tripped him at the wrong moment.

The doors opened. Out walked an unremarkable human, dressed in rumpled pajamas and hastily combing his hair with his fingers. A rush of movement. He drew in a sharp breath to shout, and let it out in a wet, choked gurgle. Then he slumped to the floor, motionless and smelling like metal.

Ozone tried not to stare, because if she did Tyrian would know she wasn't remembering something. It wasn't like it mattered that he was dead. She'd been dead too, after all, and it must not have hurt very much if she'd forgotten all about it.


	80. Fashionably Late

**Happy Friday, folks!**

* * *

**80\. Fashionably Late**

* * *

They were forced to land again that night at the very tip of Solitas, so close to the water that they could hear the crashing of the waves. No one was tempted to swim, though—this far north, it was bitingly cold even in early autumn.

Pyrrha didn't have time to miss the warmth radiating from Quake's scales. The second she dismounted, Twiggy bounded over and hovered protectively beside her. Seconds later, the hybrid landed soundlessly about fifty feet away. She watched Pyrrha with her tail twitching every so often, hardly blinking.

"This will be our last chance to rest before we get there," Winter announced. "Sleep as much as you can. We leave again in four hours."

Freya let out a dismayed yipping sound, but Pyrrha was glad they weren't staying long. Now that she wasn't so exhausted, it was even more of a chore to force herself to sleep. At least this way she wouldn't have to wait long for the others to wake up. But before she could join the rest of her friends in setting up camp, she glanced towards where the hybrid had been sitting. She was gone.

Alarmed, Pyrrha excused herself from the others and walked out into the woods. The canopy overhead wasn't very thick, and the moon was out, but it was still difficult to see where she was putting her feet. She fumbled along, distracted with wondering how she was supposed to find the hybrid in the dark like this, until the ground vanished beneath her.

Pyrrha yelped and slid several feet on loose stones and dirt before she came to a stop with her heart in her throat, at the bottom of a steep slope she hadn't noticed in the dark. There, in front of her, the trees gave way to a rocky bluff that smelled like salt. The ocean itself was another twenty feet down, shining silver in the moonlight.

There, silhouetted against the sky, was the hybrid. She sat gazing at the water, her neck stretching out as far as it would go. As Pyrrha approached, she noticed that the dragon's ears were flat against her skull, and her eyes were wide and fixed on the movement of the waves.

"Is everything alright?" Pyrrha asked.

One ear pricked up. Pyrrha spent several seconds on the receiving end of an impassive stare. Then the hybrid gave a small, noncommittal snort.

Pyrrha came as close as she dared, stopping about ten feet away and sitting cross-legged on the ground. It was freezing, with no trees to block the wind blowing in from the water. "This must be your first time seeing the ocean."

The hybrid growled. Pyrrha's heart sank, until she realized that the noise wasn't directed at her at all. She suppressed a smile and said, "I suppose it isn't for everyone."

They lapsed into a silence that was... well, it wasn't quite comfortable, but Pyrrha found herself relaxing into it the longer it went on. The hybrid seemed content to stare out at the open ocean without so much as a twitch. Pyrrha wondered, not for the first time, how long she'd been on her own. She hadn't learned much from their first meeting, except that at one point she'd hatched in the lab and not-quite-bonded to Sienna.

It struck her then that she'd neglected a very basic question.

"Can you tell me your name?"

The hybrid's head turned smoothly towards her. Again she stared, expressionless, as if weighing the question. Then she flicked her tail dismissively.

"No?"

A huff. It sounded vaguely affirmative to Pyrrha—which was about the best she could hope for, under the circumstances. "I could try to guess," she offered, then had to squash another little grin at the mental image of this half-wild hybrid playing charades with her. "Or I suppose Ilia might know, if..."

She trailed off. The hybrid had flicked her tail again, which seemed to be her way of saying no. "That's alright. If you don't want to tell me—"

Another flick—this one more forceful, as if she was agitated.

Hurt, but trying not to show it, Pyrrha nodded. "Of course. It's up to you."

The hybrid let out a frustrated hiss. Frowning, Pyrrha risked a guess. "You... _do_ want to say?"

She was silent for a moment. Then she snorted in annoyance and put her head down on her paws, apparently finished with the conversation.

Pyrrha sat there, staring at the hybrid, trying to see where... she'd... _oh._

"Do you... have a name?"

A lethargic flick of her tail.

Pyrrha couldn't speak for several seconds. When she recovered, the words slipped out before she could stop them. "Would you like one?"

The hybrid's ears perked up. Her head followed much more slowly, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I can give you suggestions until you find one that you like. And if none of them work for you, we could try again another time."

Her pale yellow eyes went wide for an instant before she covered the expression and feigned nonchalance. Then she hummed, her eyes half-lidded, as if to say that she would reluctantly humor this silly human custom.

"Well..." Pyrrha paused, her mind suddenly blank. She rejected the first thought that came to her, Sandy, without even saying it out loud. "How about Dune?"

The hybrid cocked her head to one side.

"It's what those sandy hills in the desert are called."

She considered the name for a moment, then dismissed it.

They went back and forth like that for a long time. Finally, when Pyrrha was already resigned to trying again tomorrow night, she blurted out, "Harpy?"

The hybrid pawed the ground, which Pyrrha had learned meant she didn't understand a word and wanted it explained. Then she thought back over what she just said and flushed. "Well, they're creatures from mythology that are half human, half bird. In the stories they can fly faster than the wind, but... well, they also have a reputation for stealing food and tormenting wicked souls in the underworld, so perhaps it isn't..."

She trailed off. The hybrid's head tilted to one side as she mulled the name over. Then she snorted her approval.

Pyrrha's insides lurched. She smiled through the sudden pang and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Harpy."

* * *

"Justice?"

He flicked an ear, to show that he'd heard Ilia, but kept his eyes fixed on the forest. _She'd _wandered off while the humans were talking, and he had to make sure she didn't go near Gigas when she got back.

"Can we talk?"

Justice huffed and reluctantly turned towards Ilia. Her shoulders were drawn in, and she kept fidgeting. "We're going to be in Atlas soon."

_Don't remind me._

"When we get there, there might be a fight, between the academy and riders from the Council. Don't get me wrong, Atlas is pretty messed up... but if the Council wins, they're going to be able to control most of the dragons in the world, which would be... bad doesn't really cover it." She bit her lip. "And it will make things a lot harder for the Fang, too."

Justice waited impatiently for her to get around to telling him what to do. "I—" Ilia stopped and looked around herself, as if double-checking that there was no one listening before she continued. "Do you want to fight with them?"

He stared at her, his tail twitching despite his efforts to keep it still.

"And..." She glanced around again, and stepped closer so that she could speak in a whisper. "Whether you fight or not, afterwards... we can leave, if you want. We can't go back to the Fang, I'm sorry—they'd try and kill us. But we could go somewhere else."

The sheer shock of it almost bowled him over—but not long afterward, his ears drooped with the realization that it wasn't really much of a choice. He could go wherever he wanted, except where he _really _wanted to go. And if it was a choice between Atlas, where Gigas would be, and somewhere else all by himself...

Maybe if he and Ilia saved Gigas and the Lieutenant, the others would believe them when they said they weren't traitors? No, Ilia had been the one to lead the humans to the camp in the first place...

"So, do you want to—" Ilia started to say, but cut herself off when an angry voice interrupted.

"What are you doing?" Winter Schnee stalked over to them, with Tai stumbling along behind her.

"Sorry," he said, wincing when Winter glared at him. "I looked away for a second and she kinda vanished."

"I was just making sure he was okay," Ilia said. "And I'm not a _prisoner, _you know. I decided to come here and help you."

"And _he _did his best to get us all killed," snapped Winter, turning her scowl on Justice. "You can stay where we can keep an eye on you."

Ilia walked away, and Justice laid down to sulk. Maybe he could steal Gigas and the Lieutenant, and all four of them could run away together. He'd could make sure the Lieutenant didn't hurt Ilia for being a traitor, and there wouldn't be anyone yelling at them just for talking.

"Brother."

Justice let out a noise that was _definitely _an angry growl, and not a startled yelp. When he whipped his head around, he found _her _crouching between two trees. He looked for the human she'd started following around, and found her sitting with the rest of her friends. His ears went back. "What do you want?" he snarled.

Her head tilted to one side. "Harpy."

He'd forgotten how confusing it was, talking to her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm Harpy."

Justice blinked a few times, then glanced back at the human and realized. "Right," he said coldly. "I guess if you're her pet now, she gets to name you."

Harpy hissed at him. "Not a pet. She asks. When she stops, I leave."

"Yeah, you're good at that."

Silence. He kept on ignoring her for almost a minute before he gave up and snapped, "What do you _want, _anyway?"

But when he turned around, she was gone again.

* * *

"Is it true that General Ironwood is planning a coup d'état?"

"Has he been acting on secret orders given by Ozpin before his death?"

"Is the Dragonry really a staging ground for the next faunus war?"

The last question, transparently directed at Neon, was what finally made Flynt snap. "No," he said coolly. "We just don't want the Council interfering with the Dragonry."

"Flynt," Neon groaned, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the cameras. "We gotta be careful what we say, remember? We might get, like, charged and stuff."

"It's the truth."

"No _duh, _but it'd be kinda bad if somebody used that to say you were trying to do treason or something."

He grimaced, but had to admit she had a point. The General had warned them about that yesterday, when he realized the journalists—and more importantly, the Council—were about to find the students that had left the school. Either their statements had been blown _way _out of proportion, or they'd been blatantly lying. Flynt's hands balled into fists.

There was a shift in the crowd of reporters. He tensed, watching as they scrambled to get a better angle on_ something..._

A dragon, and its rider. The long whip in her hand told him all he needed to know, and he tensed as the pair of them marched towards the scattered group of students. It was only when they were almost on top of him that he realized Cordovan, the woman from the Council, was walking in front of them.

"Where is General Ironwood?" she demanded. "If he thinks that having command of the Atlesian army means that he is above the law, he is in for an unpleasant wake-up call! The sheer _temerity—_the disrespect—" she spluttered in her anger, her face turning steadily redder until she finally spat, _"Treason! _That's what it is!"

Flynt froze. The General was inside, strategizing with a few of the professors. They were supposed to warn him if something happened, but he had no idea what Cordovan or the Council rider would do if he bolted towards the tower now.

Neon smiled innocently at Cordovan. "I thought it was just a problem with the paperwork," she said. "I mean, I wouldn't want him to let a bunch of strangers into the school where I live without permission!"

Cordovan turned towards her, horribly slowly, and turned from red to purple. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," she snarled, "that someone like _you _has a problem with _authority."_

Neon's hand was still on his arm—he felt it clench, then relax as she forced a grin. "Aw," she said, sickly sweet. "It's only a little one, I promise." Her eyes widened. "Oops, sorry! Should've realized that might be a sore subject."

"That—you—!" Cordovan was completely speechless with rage—but the Rider behind her muttered something under her breath.

The dragon's ears went back. Flynt's heart lurched. He dove sideways, bringing himself and Neon crashing to the ground. Over their heads, the dragon's jaws snapped shut. He rolled onto his side. There, like a snapshot, he saw it staring at him—relief in every line of its face.

And then, of course, all hell broke loose.

* * *

Atlas emerged from the fog like a mirage, orbited by a flock of shining silver airships. Winter felt Steele's pleased rumble through the tips of her fingers and smiled.

"Fifteen minutes out!" she called back to the others. And, naturally, this was where things would get _very _dicey. She thought she could probably get through the airships so long as she identified herself—they were closely tied to the General, and she didn't think her absence would have been noted quite so quickly.

She'd expected to be hailed by one of the airships on patrol—but they were spread much more thinly than usual. Her heart sank as she realized why. There was hardly a single dragon in the airspace surrounding the kingdom's capitol. After several more seconds of searching, she spotted the reason why. A dense thicket of movement, centered around the CCT tower at the heart of Atlas Dragonry. A battle.

"Speed up!" she ordered, and urged Steele on. Not to his full speed—she'd risk leaving the students behind, and while she thought she had a decent shot at convincing Atlas' remaining defenders to let her pass, the same would _not _be true of a swarm of teenagers.

She fumbled her scroll out of her pocket one-handed, just in time for the first contact from a nearby dropship. "Winter Schnee," she said, before the pilot had even started to speak. "Escorting a group of students transferring to Atlas." They would already be seeing the data from her scroll, and Steele wasn't exactly easy to miss.

"I wouldn't go to the dragonry right now," the pilot said, voice tinny over the speakers. "It's a mess. Half the flight squad defected, and they're fighting the other half."

Winter grimaced. "We'll set down somewhere else, then," she lied, and ended the call—just in time for the screaming of the wind to drown out all other sound, as Steele tucked in his wings and dove.

* * *

**Finally. Finally, I can call Harpy by name! No more of this "tHe HyBrId" and "sIeNnA's HaTcHlInG" bullshit! Ugh. I definitely did _not _realize when I was outlining this just how many chapters happened in between her hatching and actually getting a damn name!**

**Edit: Fixed linebreaks. Not sure if I forgot or FFN ate them, but they're there now!**


	81. The Siege of Atlas

**Hello folks! Hope y'all enjoy!**

**Also, Harpy's name came from Solora Goldsun's outline. Props go over there! Many props!**

* * *

**81\. The Siege of Atlas**

* * *

"There!" Neptune shouted over the wind. Nymph looked where he was pointing and saw Huo on the ground, wrestling with a heavy-looking earth dragon. They dove, and smashed into her from above. And, after a few heartbeats of frantic, confused scuffling, she let out a low whine and tore free of them to sprint away.

They chased her. There wasn't really much else they _could _do—it was practically impossible to tell friend from foe unless they saw a whip, since they didn't know any of the Atlas dragons by sight. Then there was the Flight Squad, full of fully grown dragons, all wearing the same uniforms. Most of them, as far as Nymph could tell, were trying to protect the school, but there was no way to tell them apart from the few that supported the Council.

It was a mess... but all in all, it felt a bit... anticlimactic.

She pounced on the earth dragon, and this time managed to snatch her rider away. The second he was hanging by the back of his coat from Nymph's jaws, she rolled over and bared her stomach to them.

Huo scoffed. "This is lame."

Nymph whacked him with her tail, but she couldn't really argue with him. Aside from the scattering of Flight Squad dragons, who were easy to spot and almost all busy fighting each other, all the dragons there were Council dragons. They were bigger than Nymph or Huo, but, well... they weren't pit dragons, all muscle and sinew and honed fighting instinct. Up until a few months ago she doubted most of them had done much of anything except sit around looking intimidating. It also didn't help that everywhere she looked, the Council dragons were outnumbered two or three to one.

"Come on," she told Huo. "Let's try and find Zircon and Nimbus."

They turned around the side of the building and skidded to a halt. A bulky water dragon stared at them. So did his rider, a woman in the flight squad uniform.

"Who the hell are you?" she bellowed at them. "Why are there so many _children _here?!"

Sun and Neptune exchanged looks, while Huo blew smoke from his nostrils.

She waved a hand at them, shouted, "Whatever!" and flew off, leaving Nymph still confused as to which side she'd been on.

More almost-fights. Then a screeching halt, as Justice bounded out in front of them. He was favoring one forepaw, and there was a bloodied human dangling from his jaws by the back of his Flight Squad jacket. When he spotted them he froze as if he'd just been caught—but then he crossed his eyes to look at the injured man.

"Here," he grumbled, and draped the man over Nymph's back.

A little while later, they ran across a Council dragon made formidable by her sheer size. She wasn't quite as enormous as Crucible, but she was close—and only a few seconds after she'd bellowed a challenge at them, Steele swooped overhead. Her rider went pale and yanked on the reins, and the pair of them vanished behind the cafeteria. Huo spat a gob of fire on the ground in disgust.

But Nymph went rigid and still, her ears perked up. A second later, she heard another sharp crack—the foot-soldiers were joining the fray.

* * *

One instant, the Council dragons and their riders looked about ready to break and panic. The next, there was a volley of gunshots and a horrible shriek overhead. Yang's heart leaped into her throat. She craned her neck upward, and watched in horror as one of the Flight Squad dragons dropped away from the Council dragon it had been fighting, its back arching as it struggled to cover its rider before slamming into the side of a building.

Yang threw her arm over her face just as a shower of dust and bits of brick reached her. The injured dragon landed in a boneless heap only a few dozen feet away.

"Get down!" she shouted. Fang dove towards the nearest building, flattening himself against the ground as more rifle shots rang out. Storm crouched just behind them, her shoulders hunched to give Ruby a little cover behind Penny's armor. This time the enemy wasn't so lucky—none of the shots looked like they'd even hit, much less struck a vital spot like the last one obviously had.

But they'd keep shooting until somebody stopped them. And if they were having as much trouble telling who was who as Yang was, which they probably were... the most obvious targets would be the ones without Flight Squad uniforms _or _Council Rider whips. In other words, _them._

"They're behind that wall!" Ruby shouted, pointing. "Get around the—"

Too late. Yang could _see _the first of them pop out of cover, the barrel of the rifle pointing right at them—and Storm jumped in front of them with a savage roar. Shots sparked off her armor, until she hit the ground and skidded to a halt with her sides heaving.

"Around the side!" Ruby yelled. "We've got it!"

"Ruby don't you _dare—"_

They were already moving. Fang charged after them, keeping himself as flat against the ground as he could. Council goons watched them with wide eyes as they fumbled frantically with their rifles. A little _ting, _as one of them dropped a bullet and it bounced off the paved walkway.

Only two managed to raise their guns in time. Storm jumped on one, letting the bullet deflect harmlessly off her belly. Fang spat fire at the other. He ducked out of the way, but his sleeve caught, and while he was still trying to smother it with his body Fang's tail came around and knocked him flat. The rifle went spinning off to the side. Storm's back foot came down on it, leaving it half-crushed and useless.

Fang tore guns away from their owners left and right, growling deep in his chest and oozing liquid fire between the corners of his mouth. He spat out a mix of molten metal and charcoal, gagging slightly at the taste. Finally the rifles were gone, and they were facing a group of terrified, unarmed idiots.

"Start running!" Yang snarled. They couldn't obey fast enough, and finally she could take a second to slump against Fang's back.

"Come on!" When she looked up, Ruby was staring off to the side. "I can see a bunch more of them." She twisted around in the saddle and jabbed a finger at Yang. "And stay behind us this time! You guys aren't bullet proof, remember?"

Yang tried to protest, but her little sister was already charging on ahead. She was lying flat against Storm's back, it was true, and the armor on the dragon's shoulder blades shielded her on either side, but... _but..._

Yang grimaced and held on tight to the saddle as Fang bounded after them, indignant at bringing up the rear in a charge. His frustration was making smoke billow out of his mouth, and he snarled eagerly at the Council riflemen as they approached.

She memorized every spark that slid harmlessly off Storm's armor plating—every single one was another thank-you she'd owe Penny once all this was over... and another piece of hell she'd have to personally deliver to the assholes in charge.

* * *

Instinct flattened her against the rooftop the instant she heard the gunshots. The instant _Harpy _heard the gunshots—the new name was still strange, and she had to shake off the feeling before she could advance. She darted forward, careful to stay low and out of sight of the people on the ground.

More shots. One pinged off the metal lip of the building, and she let out a low hiss. Then, finally, she reached the edge of the roof and launched herself into the air.

Four humans with rifles stood in a row, facing away from her and squinting down the barrels of their guns. They didn't hear her over the chaos all around them until the very last instant, when four heads snapped around to face her—just in time for a blast of her powers to catch them right in the eyes. Two went down, shouting obscenities. One dropped her gun and clapped her hands to her face. The last swung the gun up and fired at the place where he'd last seen her. She was already gone, banking hard and darting into a narrow pathway between two buildings.

A quick glance below showed her that Pyrrha was still keeping her head down and staying out of fights, which was good. She was surprisingly hard to hit, but Harpy doubted the ones with guns would have as much trouble.

Around another building. Harpy flapped hard to dodge a dragon and his faunus coming the opposite way. They were young—students, but she didn't recognize them, so probably from Atlas. There was another gunshot, and the dragon let out a piercing screech before plummeting to the ground.

A human lying flat on a rooftop. The glint of his rifle. Harpy flew at him. He fumbled to reload, then gave it up as a lost cause and swung the gun like a club. It bounced off her snout. She caught him up in her claws and lifted him clean off his feet. He kicked and struggled. The gun slipped out of his hands and fell—he tried to hook the strap on his foot and missed.

Harpy dove. Buildings flashed by as she built up momentum, skimming fifteen feet above the ground. She let go—he bounced off a lamppost and landed in a crumpled, groaning heap.

She flitted back to the dragon. He was still, sprawled on his back in the middle of a main pathway, his rider hidden underneath him. Already gone. But...

Harpy squirmed her way under his shoulders and found the faunus boy trapped in a tangle of straps, struggling to breathe under all the weight. Easy enough to chew him free and drop him by the dragon's head.

It was what Harbinger or Justice would have wanted, in his place.

Back in the air. She found Pyrrha almost instantly, her bright red hair waving behind her like a flag. She was _not _keeping her head down. Instead, she'd managed to attract the attention of a Council pair. Harpy hissed in displeasure and swept towards them, but before she could even start her dive, Twiggy was already there.

The enemy was a wind dragon, long and lean, with a big barrel chest that should have meant dangerous strength. Twiggy looked tiny beside her, but after a few swipes of their claws and tails, she was already retreating with a few low, piteous whines. Not a threat.

But there was another dragon above them. Impossible to tell, at first, which side he was on—he was grown, but his rider didn't have a whip. But he spotted Twiggy and angled himself towards her, and Harpy swerved into his path.

He flared his wings, neatly avoiding her without a heartbeat's hesitation. His rider straightened in the saddle, drew his arm up. Metal glinted in the sun. A flash, and a jolt of pain in her leg. Harpy screeched and blasted dragon and rider both. Scales and skin cracked. The human fired three more shots in a blind panic, all misses. She caught up to them and yanked him bodily from the saddle, tearing the leather straps in a frenzy of tooth and claw.

She bore him to the ground and pinned him there, still squirming, baring her teeth in his face.

_"No!"_

Pyrrha and the dragon shouted at the same time. Harpy blinked. Her leg still hurt, but only a little. Not nearly as much as when the girl with the webs had stabbed it with a knife when she was much, much smaller. She snorted into his face, her breath hot and dry but not enough to hurt him, and when she was satisfied that he was quite a bit more scared of her than she was of him, she released him and trotted to Pyrrha's side.

"Are you alright?" Pyrrha blurted, kneeling to examine her leg. "I saw—you're bleeding!"

Harpy backed away, her ears flattening in confusion. The human moved as if to touch her and she dropped into a fighting crouch, her teeth bared. But there was no threat. Only a look in her eyes, of panic and dread and something much, much worse.

Twiggy bounded towards them, tense and ready to pounce, as if Harpy was another threat—but by the time she reached Pyrrha, the hybrid was already in the air. Letting the rest of them dwindle behind her, and taking shelter in the battle raging around them.

* * *

After what _felt _like an eternity, the gunshots came to a stuttering halt. Council dragons flew off clutching their riders in their paws, screeching bloody murder despite not taking a single casualty that James had seen.

His Flight Squads hadn't been so lucky. Neither had his students.

"Sir!"

He forced himself to turn at the sound of Winter's voice. She and Steele rushed towards him, the great ice dragon bleeding a little from a cut over his eye. James himself hadn't been able to do much of anything except take cover—and it _rankled._ He bent down to give Lisa Lavender, who had been crouching nearby, a hand up.

Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"Thank you, Winter," he said. They would still have had a slight numerical advantage without her... but _slight _might not have been enough, with the infantry supporting the Council. "Any serious injuries?"

She grimaced. "Some. Excelsior and... one of the student's dragons, I can't remember his name. They were shot, didn't even make it to the ground alive. Other than that... some broken bones, a broken wing, nonfatal gunshot wounds."

Lisa Lavender relaxed. "No rider casualties, then?" She wilted under their combined glares.

James walked the grounds with Winter, doing his best to reassure students and Flight Squad members alike. Under his breath, he said grimly, "They'll be back."

"I don't doubt that."

Then James stopped, staring, as he rounded a corner and came face to face with what he'd _thought _was a lost advantage. Storm noticed him staring and tilted her head quizzically. The device's indicator blinked yellow.

"You found it," he said. Then, squinting... "what happened to her wing?"

They explained. James listened, his heart sinking until he swore he could feel it beating in the pit of his stomach. It was Ozpin's worst nightmare for the technology come to life. If the Council got their hands on it...

"Winter," he said. "Come with me. The rest of you, tend to your injuries and do what you can to relax.

"You're worried about Penny," Winter said, once they were safely in his office.

James blinked. "Penny?" Then, remembering, "Ah, yes. Miss Rose's name for the device."

"It's more than a name."

"Meaning?"

"What do you think?"

He thought about that for a moment, and slumped in his chair. "It's sentient, isn't it."

"As far as anyone can tell, yes. Will that be a problem?"

_Damn it, Pietro._

"No," he sighed. "Well, someone will probably have to deal with that ethical dilemma eventually, but we have more immediate problems. Like Storm's injury."

"We can't pair Penny with someone else?"

James shook his head. "Pietro might be able to... reset it—her—given time, but it doesn't take a philosopher to see what's wrong with that."

"Storm can still fight," Winter pointed out. "Without her and Penny we would have lost a lot more to those rifles."

He couldn't argue with that... but even so, the—_Penny _would be a lot more effective if she could fly. There wasn't much point dwelling on it, though, not when she couldn't be linked to another dragon...

James' eye caught on a blueprint, framed and displayed on the opposite wall, of a set of dragon armor. It had been used as a base for the modular plating that Penny could now deploy, but was too bulky to be much practical use on it's own. Unless, of course, someone decided to stuff it full of gravity dust.

_Damn it._ If he actually decided to do this, there was no way Pietro would hear a word of his _completely justified _complaints about creating sentient artificial intelligence without so much as a warning. He'd be _far _too smug.


	82. Eye of the Storm

**Praise be to the buffer!**

**Yes, me being the absolute fool that I am, I thought that Thanksgiving break would lead to me being _extra _productive. I don't know why I keep making this same mistake every year.**

* * *

**82\. Eye of the Storm**

* * *

"Let's show it again."

"Nno!" Zircon whined, hiding his head behind Sage. They were all gathered in a courtyard, where a holoscreen was playing the news of the fight. Being there _once _was enough. Why were they watching it again?

Sage gave him a consoling pat. "Do you want to turn it off?"

"No!" Huo barked, his eyes still fixed on the screen. His nostrils were smoking.

Again the dragon fell, in slow motion. He hit the ground on his belly, bounced, and rolled onto his back, pinning his rider under him. Then a cut to Harpy tugging the rider out from under him and setting him down by the dragon's head.

Zircon took deep breaths of Sage's scent to calm himself. He'd never thought Harpy would be the _least _scary part of any video. It still wasn't as bad as the fight itself had been, though. He and Sage had mostly stayed with Scarlet and Nimbus, avoiding the rifles and Flight Squad dragons as much as they could and keeping the Council dragons from ganging up on students from Atlas.

"—obvious disregard for a child's safety!" one of the people on the news was saying. "If the dragon had landed a little differently, he could've broken his neck instead of his leg."

"Or been crushed," added another. "It's pure dumb luck that feral decided to pick him up."

Huo's feet started to smoke. Sun lunged for the controls, and the holoscreen went dark. "Hey," he said, putting his hands on his dragon's nose. "I'm gonna need you to turn it down, like, eleven notches, okay dude?"

"I wouldn't mind a little arson right now," Neptune grumbled. "Honestly, they're acting like she just grabbed him out of nowhere when basically _any _dragon would've done that. I saw _Council _dragons trying to help injured kids, and their riders were telling them _not _to!"

"Not to mention that they said there were _no casualties," _seethed Scarlet. "Oh, isn't it sad that the poor boy broke his leg! I _guarantee _that's the last thing on his mind right now."

Sun sighed and slung an arm over each of their shoulders. "Preaching to the choir here, guys."

"It's not _good, _I know," Sage said softly, "but I think you're all overlooking something important."

Neptune groaned. _"What."_

"They're on our side."

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"You're right," Scarlet breathed. "I bet they never covered Beacon like this. Nobody would've been talking about how reckless it was for the Council to attack like they did, because they blamed the whole thing on Ragnar and said they were just defending themselves."

"When it was _them _who shot Ozpin," Neptune added hotly.

"Yeah, but they can't make excuses this time! The whole thing was on video! And they're gonna say it's Ironwood's fault for not letting them in, but a lot of people won't buy that."

"See?" Sage squeezed his hand. "This is good. Even if it's frustrating."

* * *

"Oh my god."

Yang stumbled out of the dorm building and half-collapsed against Fang's side. He coiled up in alarm, peering at her through narrowed eyes. She didn't _look _hurt...

"We're good..." She patted his nose. "All good. _So _good. I just had a shower and I swear I fucking _melted."_

Fang scoffed. His rider looked at him cross-eyed. "You laugh!" she said. "But hot water is the _best _thing ever. Especially since I'm pretty sure I still had soot on me from running away from Crucible. Which is almost as scary as it is gross."

"Whatever," he grumbled, and poked her with his tail.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it! I'm coming!" She grinned and gave him a light shove. He probably wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't watched her do it.

They met Storm in front of the cafeteria. Ruby was next to her, arms piled high with human snacks and sandwiches. Fang and the other dragons had already eaten while their riders were cleaning up—he supposed he could sort of understand Yang's reaction to the showers, because after finally feeling full for the first time in ages, he'd come pretty close to curling up in a ball and falling asleep right then and there.

Specter and Pit and their riders were all together, hanging back a bit awkwardly while Blake talked to Ilia. There had been a lot of arguing in the immediate aftermath of the fight, about whether or not they should let Justice keep walking around. He _had _helped them in the fight... but Fang was still a little annoyed that Ironwood had been willing to settle for having the students, and Ilia, keep a close eye on him. Though he supposed Blake and Ilia _did _have a point, when they'd said that she and Justice couldn't go back to the White Fang even if they wanted to, now.

"We ready to go?" Ilia asked, with a strained expression that might have been supposed to be a smile. Ruby handed food around, and they ate as they walked down to the Earth barn. The Flight Squad Rider that had been watching Ilia came too, along with his dragon, though they lagged behind a bit to let the others talk.

Or stew in awkward silence, which was what they _actually _ended up doing.

"Hey!" Pit called out the moment they arrived, and bumped his nose against one of the stalls. It was the only one with any kind of lock on it—a simple padlock that the Flight Squad Rider produced a key to, unlocking it and then stepping away. Gigas bounded out the instant it opened, launching himself at Justice and wriggling up onto his head.

"It's so _boring _in there," he whined. "It's as bad as the tent back home!"

"Sorry," Pit said, giving him a gentle nudge. Justice bared his teeth at him, and he drew away. But Gigas hopped down and raced between his paws, his eyes roving eagerly around the barn. "You could stay outside, if you wanted."

"But the Lieutenant is inside!"

Fang's ears drooped. Well, when he put it _that _way...

The big man sat sitting cross-legged on the cot they'd dragged into the stall. His arm was freshly bandaged, and they'd given him some much-needed antibiotics that helped with the unhealthy red flush that had started creeping in around some of his worse scratches. He still obviously wasn't enjoying his containment.

Harpy had bristled when they mentioned locking the pair of them up—but she'd calmed down when they'd promised to make regular visits so that Gigas got plenty of fresh air and exercise. It was the best they could really do, and from the way he talked Fang was starting to suspect that even as a sort-of-prisoner, he still had more freedom to roam than he used to.

He shot one last glare at the big man in the stall, before busying himself with distracting Gigas. Maybe once this was over... maybe... but he'd still have a Rider who was a criminal. What were any of them supposed to do about that?

* * *

_Pyrrha!_

Twiggy bolted upright, her head snaking around from side to side. Pyrrha wasn't there. She shot to her feet, took a step—

"Hey!" Jaune wrapped both arms around her neck. He had to jump to be able to reach, but the weight of him hanging there was soothing. "It's alright. She's with Ren and Nora, we figured we'd let you sleep."

She considered that for a moment... then barked, "Rruh!" and looked at Jaune. He grinned and pointed, and she bounded around a corner to find Pyrrha sitting with Ao Guang and Freya.

And Harpy.

Twiggy growled low in her throat. Every time she took her eyes off Pyrrha for a second, she'd vanish and turn up again with Harpy. And probably new cuts and bruises. She stalked over and settled down between her and the hybrid, her tail curling protectively around her. Jaune let go of her neck and slid to the ground.

"Hi," he said, grinning.

Pyrrha leaned her head on his shoulder. "Hello."

Harpy's tail flicked lazily from side to side—but her eyes stayed fixed on them, unblinking.

Of course, even weeks on end of constantly being chased from place to place couldn't keep Guang lying down for very long. He got bored and started trying to play with Freya, who was doing her best impression of a limp coil of rope and refused to move even when he poked her with his tail.

Eventually Guang gave up and moved to Twiggy. She nuzzled him and said, "Not right now, sorry." He blinked at her. Then, slowly, like that meant she wouldn't notice him looking, he craned his neck to the right to stare at Harpy.

She stared back, cool as a snake.

"Oh," he said, backing away. "Um, okay."

"Hey, Guang!" Nora waved to him, a stick in one hand. He bounded over to her, and when she tossed the stick into the air, he charged after it. Ren sat with his back against Freya's flank, occasionally throwing the stick for the other two.

Twiggy relaxed. The sun was coming in golden between the buildings, and she could feel Jaune and Pyrrha pressing against her side, warm and safe. Her eyelids drooped...

A sudden silence woke her. Her head shot up. Guang and Nora had stopped playing and were standing there, tense, the stick forgotten on the ground. Even Freya had roused from her doze. Harpy stood a few feet in front of Twiggy. Still staring. Silent.

Twiggy growled at her. She hissed back.

"Stop that," Pyrrha said firmly. She tried to get to her feet, and on instinct Twiggy tightened her tail around her and Jaune.

Harpy bared her fangs.

That was _it. _This little hybrid was _not _going to take Pyrrha away. Twiggy flared her wings and roared, "No! She's _Titan's _human, leave her alone!"

"Whoa, whoa!" Jaune struggled—one of his arms was still pinned to his side by her tail. Twiggy pushed him and Pyrrha behind her and dropped into a crouch.

Harpy's eyes narrowed to slits. Her head drew back, spines standing up all along her spine, and her jaws opened wide to strike. But there was a flash of red, as Pyrrha vaulted over one of Twiggy's legs and jumped between them. _"Stop it!"_

They both froze.

There were tears in Pyrrha's eyes. Twiggy's insides lurched, and she bent her head in close, licking her face and rumbling deep in her chest.

Pyrrha pushed her away.

A broken keening noise—Twiggy only realized she was the one who'd made the sound when Pyrrha put a hand on her nose and it stopped. "It's alright," she murmured, "but please don't do that again." Then she turned, as if to say the same thing to Harpy.

The hybrid had already vanished.

* * *

She was hungry.

She trotted across the grounds, still limping slightly, until she found the place where they had set out food for the visiting dragons. Lots of strange animals she didn't recognize, and plants that smelled as bland and uninteresting as the ones the Fang had put in cloth sacks. There were other dragons around, sniffing around until they settled on something they wanted.

A deer hung by one leg from the jaws of the big ice dragon. She watched him, her tail lashing in frustration, everything bubbling hot and poisonous inside until she wanted to jump up and snatch it away from him.

She didn't. But he must have noticed her glaring at him, because he arched his neck at her. Ignoring him, she sniffed around a small pile of fruits. They were round and pink, and... fuzzy?

There was a whistling sigh, somewhere overhead, but Steele let her take them and leave without trying to talk to her. She hid in a small pile of straw behind one of the barns, curled up around her meal with a wing thrown over her head. The fruits withered up in their skins. Then she took one in her jaws, bit down... and the taste flooded her senses, all tangled up with hazy memories of a glass jar and a warm hand.

With an enraged shriek, she surged to her feet and spat the fruit on the ground. Her whole body bristled with the urge to bite something. She let loose a furious snarl.

"Um."

Her head whipped around. The blond human, Jaune, was standing about thirty feet away, by the corner of the barn. He backed up a step. "Hi? Uh... Pyrrha's looking for you. And she can probably find better food if you don't like peaches."

Slowly, her ears came up from where they'd gone flat against her skull. She snorted and twisted around to stare indifferently over his shoulder. When she looked back again, he'd left.

She waited.

"Are you _sure _you don't want me to come?" Jaune's voice again.

"Yes."

She shifted, moving from where she'd coiled into a sulky ball without noticing. Just then, Pyrrha came around the corner with a basket of meat and vegetables.

"I wasn't sure what you liked," she said, with a small smile. "There weren't any cacti."

Harpy wasn't very hungry anymore, but she bent and cleaned out the basket anyway. None of it tasted much like anything, which was a relief.

When she looked up, Pyrrha had taken her usual seat about fifteen feet away. "I'm not angry about what happened," she said softly. "I just... I don't want you and Twiggy fighting like that. Okay?"

She got to her feet. Pyrrha stayed still as she paced in a circle around her. Still the same smell, though now it was half-buried under something flowery. The last piece, so distant it was hardly even there, _smoke._ Finally she settled on her haunches, right in front of the human, and spoke.

"Tie... tann..."

Pyrrha made a noise just like the one that had escaped her when Harpy's tail had hit her in the gut. She shifted, drawing her knees in and hugging them close to my chest. "Where... where did you hear that?"

Harpy waited.

"Oh." She pressed her forehead to her knees and took a deep, shuddering breath. Choked on the name, twice, and gave up. "He... was my dragon."

A low growl started up in her chest—but Pyrrha didn't even seem to notice. She stared at the ground, fixated on something only she could see. "They killed him. The Council, I mean."

The growl stopped. A horrible silence hung in the air, while Harpy stared at her. She'd noticed Pyrrha wasn't with a dragon like all the others were, but she hadn't thought...

A shudder went through Pyrrha, and her hands tightened into fists. "You're not a replacement." She looked up, her eyes wet and shining. "Neither am I. But... maybe we can help each other?"

Harpy couldn't move. She hadn't felt this panicked since that first Grimm in the forest—what was she supposed to do? She couldn't speak many human words, and anyway there was nothing she could say to that, even if Pyrrha would understand it.

But she was waiting for something, offering something, and Harpy _wanted _it. So she bent her neck down, slowly, until they were almost nose to nose. Pyrrha's eyes widened—then fluttered shut. She didn't move, even when the moment stretched on and on. Waiting.

The last resistance gave way. And, gently, Harpy pressed her nose against Pyrrha's forehead.

A beaming, watery smile. A surge of warmth.

Harpy coiled around her, now decided. The human who asked would be _hers._


	83. Disillusionment

**X===============Emotional Conversations=============}**

** Whitley**

* * *

**83\. Disillusionment**

* * *

Whitley tried not to.

He woke up to clear mornings, looking up through the translucent membrane of Glacier's wings that glimmered with tiny diamond drops of dew. He spent days lounging around on the dragon's back, or strolling casually through the forest, unspooling years of tension. He fell asleep to the sound of crackling fire and the smell of wood smoke.

He forgot to be careful.

"Do you ever think about staying out here?" he wondered, half to himself—and half to Oscar, who was walking next to him. They were out of earshot of the dragons, who were busy having some kind of discussion, or maybe an argument, that Whitley couldn't make heads or tails of.

Oscar whipped his head around, and Whitley finally realized what he'd just let slip. "I mean—that is—"

"All the time." Oscar grinned crookedly at him. "Sorry, I was just surprised you were actually... talking to me. On purpose."

"I talk to you," Whitley grumbled.

Oscar didn't argue with that, which was good, because he couldn't think of an example off the top of his head where he'd started a conversation. It had probably happened at some point, right? "I know we'll need to deal with the Council eventually. Uh, or Ragnar and me will, I don't know if Glacier will want to fight."

"You're really... what, going to war?" Whitley asked, incredulous.

"Ragnar is." Oscar shrugged. "I want to help. It feels like this is my chance to really _do _something, you know? Although, there _has _been a lot more hiking than I thought there would be."

"At least Ragnar _asks_ you before picking you up by the scruff."

Oscar stared at him.

"What?"

"You're smiling."

Whitley had to touch his own face to confirm that yes, he was. "He... might be starting to grow on me. A little."

"I can see why." Oscar glanced at Whitley, then away towards the trees. "He's sweet once you get to know him, even if he's a bit prickly at first."

Whitley squinted at him. There was something _very _odd about the way he was talking, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what. "I suppose he is. Though I'm getting tired of him pretending not to understand me when he doesn't like what I'm saying."

Oscar sighed. "Yeah. That must be annoying."

Tension spiked between them. Baffled, Whitley flailed for something to say that might let him escape this conversation—but then Oscar shook his head, and it was gone.

"It seems like he's pretty lonely, too," he said softly.

"Lonely?"

"Not as much now. But before... I don't think he had many people he could talk to."

Whitley shrugged. "There was a stable hand that seemed nice. And I think Weiss used to sneak out to see him before she left for Beacon. Then he started singing at night, but it kept Father awake so he had him muzzled..." Whitley stopped, slightly alarmed by the look on Oscar's face. "What?"

Oscar hesitated, then tentatively patted his shoulder. Whitley stared at him as several completely incomprehensible expressions flitted across his face, before he finally settled on a slightly nauseous-looking grin and fled. Leaving Whitley standing there as, for the first time he could remember, the one who _hadn't _run away from the conversation first.

Before he could even try to figure out what had just happened, Ragnar tipped back his head and let out a loud noise somewhere between a snort and a snarl. Whitley jumped. Tempest was staring down the old earth dragon, her head arched and her wings slightly flared. Ragnar shuffled his own, as if to show off the healing scars in the membranes. Tempest relaxed, a little. Cocked her head to one side and made an inquisitive noise. Ragnar bobbed his head.

This... whatever it was apparently settled, he padded over to Oscar and nudged him with his nose.

"Are we changing direction again?" Oscar asked.

Ragnar made a low chuffing noise that sounded alarmingly like laughter. His wings stretched out to either side, flexing, like a human might roll his shoulders. "Ffly!" he rumbled, his grey eyes shining.

Whitley's heart dropped like a stone.

This was it—they were almost out of time. Soon he'd be going home.

* * *

Tyrian hummed a jaunty tune while they prepared to report to Cinder. Emerald wished he would stop. Her heart was already pounding, and sweat pricked at the insides of her palms. It would all be alright in a few moments, but waiting like this was agonizing.

And then they weren't waiting anymore. Strike stared them down from where she lay coiled up behind her rider. Emerald forced herself to look at Cinder, and felt her stomach twist. She was, if anything, in an even worse mood than when they'd left.

"Well?" she demanded.

Tyrian stepped forward. "The task is done," he said, with his usual unnerving grin.

She didn't smile, but her scowl got a little less forbidding. "Good."

Emerald's tongue felt thick in her mouth. She forced herself to say, "C-cinder?"

"Do you have something to _add, _Emerald?"

Mercury's dark eyes bored into her.

"I had a question. About the eggs. I don't understand—"

"I think this is a matter best discussed inside," Cinder interrupted. Her voice had gone silky-smooth, sending Emerald's heart racing for two very different reasons. _She's angry._

"Of course!" Emerald moved towards the cabins. Jade followed right behind her, and Mercury and Tyrian just behind her.

"In _private,"_ Cinder snapped. Tyrian bowed low and strode away with Ozone in tow. Mercury hesitated, shot her a dark look, and leaned against the cabin wall. Emerald followed Cinder inside, and jumped when Strike immediately moved to block the door.

"Em?" Jade tried to move past her, but the fire dragon wouldn't budge.

"Wait with Mercury," Emerald told her, and jammed her hands in her pockets so Jade wouldn't see them shaking. She must have picked up on _something, _though, because she warbled nervously and tried again to get past Strike. "Stay," Emerald insisted, a little more sharply. Jade sat down, her tail flicking back and forth anxiously.

The door creaked shut. It was dark inside compared to the dappled sunlight of the valley, and Cinder's face was half-hidden in shadow. Emerald couldn't read her expression. A familiar fog filled her head, crackling like static and making it harder and harder to think.

"You had a question."

Emerald stared at the ground. It was hard to breathe, all of a sudden, and impossible to meet Cinder's eyes. "I don't understand." The words came out as a whisper. "Why...?"

A sigh that stirred a few strands of Emerald's hair. She could feel the heat of it.

"I hate it." Footsteps, circling her. "It's an ugly thing, but we live in an ugly world. If we'd let the Council get their filthy hands on another generation of Riders..."

Emerald shivered. "But... there has to be something else we could do. We could—" Her heart stumbled as she remembered Mercury's cold stare. "Next time. Couldn't we steal them, or ruin the Dust, or..."

She stopped. The cabin was deathly quiet. She couldn't even hear Cinder breathing.

"You have a lot of questions, lately." Her tone was mild. Emerald felt like she was sinking into the floor, her whole body going heavy and numb.

"I'm sorry!" _Breathe in. Breathe out. _"I didn't mean to... I just don't understand." Cinder had explained the plan to her, over and over. Everything always made sense once she explained it.

A hand settled on her shoulder. It was warm, almost too hot, and Emerald lost track of her breathing. "We are entering the most critical stage of the plan. The culmination of years of effort. And who do I have on my side, now? Far fewer students than I should."

Emerald couldn't stop the tremor that went through her. Cinder's fingers tightened—she'd noticed.

"Various dissatisfied parties, the enemies of my enemy, uncertain allies at best. Arthur, and we both know only the terminally stupid would ever trust _him._ And, of course... those who are truly loyal to me."

She tried to swallow, and couldn't do it. Her breath was coming much too short now, she knew Cinder could hear it, but she couldn't _stop._

"I am." It came out shaky. "Loyal. I just—"

"Just what?" Cinder still doesn't sound angry, but her nails are digging little crescents into Emerald's shoulder. "You've been unreliable for some time now, Emerald."

"I've been trying! And I'll—I'll do better."

"Have you? I let you play the diplomat to the Beacon students because I thought you could keep them on our side even if you were distracted. But now they've decided they'd rather hide like cowards than face the—"

"That's not true!"

Both of them froze.

"What did you just say?"

Emerald couldn't put words together. She tried anyway, stuttered out, "I didn't—I only meant—they thought—"

But it was much too late for that.

* * *

Mercury had been waiting outside almost twenty minutes when Emerald stumbled finally over the cabin's threshold. Jade was there in an instant, crooning and nuzzling at her face. He kept watching the door, tense, but Cinder didn't come back outside. Tyrian had long since gotten bored and wandered off. Strike was still there, watching.

"Come on," he said, and jerked his head towards the woods. "Let's check on the pit dragons."

He held back as they crossed the valley floor, with Strike's eyes following them. He held back while they climbed up the narrow, half-hidden pathway, still in full view of the cabins. Then they entered the woods, and he grabbed Emerald by the arm and shoved her into a tree.

"What did you tell her?!"

Jade lunged at him. Rudder blocked her and warbled in distress. But Mercury barely noticed. Emerald's shoulder hit the tree at an odd angle, and she muffled a pained yelp.

He hadn't pushed her that hard.

Mercury froze. So did Emerald—she was looking up at him, silently pleading for him not to notice. He remembered how that felt.

"Fuck." He let go. Jade growled deep in her chest, still looking like she wanted to take a bite out of him.

"Don't," Emerald muttered. "It's not his fault."

Jade's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Then she lunged forward, bumping her nose against her rider's shoulder. Emerald flinched.

Mercury watched her draw herself up, as if in slow motion, feeling like he was watching a boulder teetering on the edge of a cliff. Knowing disaster was coming, but completely powerless to stop it.

"You _can't!" _Emerald hissed. "Please... it'd only get worse."

Jade's teeth were still bared in mid-snarl. Reluctantly, she settled back onto her haunches and started licking Emerald's face. Disaster temporarily averted.

"Wuh?" Rudder whined.

Mercury patted his side. "It's fine." Then, when Jade glared at him, "Alright, I lied, it's not fine. But it's not like we can do fuck-all about it, so there's no point worrying."

Emerald hunched her shoulders. Making herself small. "Quit it," he snapped. "Her fucking issues are not on you."

"You told me not to ask."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "You told her."

"I didn't—I wanted—" Emerald groaned and buried her face in her hands. "I don't want to talk about it right now."

"You're _joking."_

"I will!" she said, with another flinch that made him wince. "Just... can we visit the pit dragons first?"

Mercury hadn't planned on going anywhere near them, but he reluctantly agreed to give her a minute. They hiked in silence for a while without spotting any of the pit dragons. He was just starting to wonder if it was too soon to try again when they stepped through a screen of trees and almost walked right into Glory.

She was already staring at them. Her whole body lay draped over a group of mossy stones, so limp and still she might have looked dead if her eyes weren't following them as they walked. Sunlight glinted off the metal-plated helmet over her head.

"Hello," Emerald murmured.

Mercury grimaced. He thought privately that they could've saved themselves the hike by talking directly to one of Watts' cameras instead.

Glory didn't respond. Not even a twitch of her tail.

Emerald shivered. "Is it just me or do they seem... even less like themselves than before?"

"They act a bit more like dragons when they're fighting." Mercury noticed Rudder huddling closer to him and gave him a comforting pat.

She lifted a hand, then dropped it just as quickly. Glory still didn't move, or blink, or make any sign that she cared about their existence. "I wish we could help," Emerald admitted. "Just a little, you know? But petting her definitely wouldn't."

"I don't think they feel any of it," Mercury said, with false confidence. "It's like they're asleep."

Glory kept staring. Emerald stared back, until he couldn't take it anymore and had to interrupt.

"Let's go. This is starting to feel pointless."

Once they were sure they were out of earshot, before Mercury could say a word, Emerald turned to him and said, "I didn't tell her."

He let out a breath. "Okay. That's good. But... what the fuck happened, then?" He gestured at her shoulder, and tried to ignore the way she covered it with her hand.

"I just wanted her to explain why. But I've been screwing everything up, and I lost the students, and I—"

"Em." Jade bumped her nose against Emerald's back. "Nno."

"I argued with her. About them."

Mercury cringed. "Shit."

"But they _didn't _run away," Emerald insisted. "They're going to fight, they're just—"

"I know, Emerald," he said. "But you seriously need to start looking after your own skin, not worrying about whether she shit-talks some kids that are probably hundreds of miles away by now."

"Are they?" Emerald stared back at the direction they'd just come from, where Glory was probably still lying there. Waiting. "You saw. The pit dragons came back with blood on their claws."

"We don't know how that went." Mercury ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. You can't afford to be worrying about them right now."

"I know."

"What's going _on, _Emerald? You're normally better at reading her. Shit, even _Watts _knows now isn't the time to go around pissing her off." That earned him another dirty look from Jade.

Emerald stopped walking. Mercury almost bumped into her, but managed to catch himself. She looked stricken, like she was struggling to get the words out.

"I can't stop thinking... it doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense. How are we supposed to be helping, if we're doing _that?"_ She jabbed a finger in Glory's general direction. "What if... what if she only wants to hurt the Council?"

Mercury stood stock-still, too shocked to speak. Then all the air rushed out of him in a harsh, bitter laugh. "Yeah, _no shit."_

Emerald backed up a step.

"Are we talking about the same fucking person?!" Mercury's voice was rising, and Jade was starting to give him the evil eye again, but he didn't care. "Of _course _she just wants revenge! They killed her dragon, and now she's going do whatever it takes to incinerate every single one of them, and fuck whoever gets in the way."

"But—she _saved _us!"

"So?" He spread his hands. "We're good tools, Em. That's it." It felt good to say it—until Emerald crumpled in on herself, like she'd just lost the last thing keeping her upright.

"I can't do this anymore."

"...Okay."

She looked up sharply. "What?"

"I said _fine." _Mercury glanced at Rudder, who was watching them both with wide eyes. "We'll go tonight."


	84. Too Little, Too Late

**Hello, and happy Friday! This chapter, Mercury demonstrates why Emerald does the burglaries, and a hatchling makes an appearance.**

* * *

**84\. Too Little, Too Late**

* * *

"Wait!" Rudder nosed at Jade's side. "Where are we going?"

"Anywhere but here," she growled.

His ears went back. "Why?"

Jade didn't answer, but she went taught with anger and Rudder didn't press her. They'd all been acting weird ever since Emerald had talked to Cinder. He still didn't understand what had happened, but it didn't really matter. Their riders' fear was impossible to miss.

Then, without warning, Emerald skidded to a halt. Mercury tugged on her arm. "Come _on, _what are you doing?!"

"We can't leave yet!"

"If you tell me you want to talk to her—" Mercury said, his face darkening.

"I don't. We need to—act natural!"

Tumbleweed ambled across their path. He only glanced at them, and Rudder suppressed a shudder at the sight. All the pit dragons seemed so _empty, _now.

By the time they were past him, they were almost back to the camp. The new riders were out with their dragonets getting in a little exercise before the sun finished setting, and they couldn't ask Emerald what she was doing. So they followed her around to the back of Watts' lab, where she gestured for them to wait.

"You two stay out here," she whispered. "Make noise if you see him. He should be with Cinder right now, talking about the hybrids."

"What the fuck are we doing?" demanded Mercury.

"Stealing information."

_"Why?"_

"We'll need something to bargain with, right?" Emerald glared at Mercury with her arms folded. "If we want to find the students, instead of hiding in the woods with all the pit dragons. And Crucible."

"You just don't want little Red to hate you!"

"Shut up and help me!" she demanded, and yanked on his arm. He stumbled forward, and she set to work picking the lock.

Rudder warbled in dismay. It was bad enough they were running off and he still didn't know why, but why couldn't they just leave? Why were they going in _Watts' _lab? He'd much rather sit outside the door to Cinder's cabin instead.

* * *

The inside of Watts' lab was dark and silent, and smelled like a hospital. Emerald scanned the main room with a thief's eye, but she couldn't see anything that looked damning. Just papers covered in his spidery writing, nearly impossible to read even when it wasn't full of confusing jargon. Useless.

"Over here."

Mercury pointed to a map on the wall. It looked like it was of the surrounding forest, with the compound marked in blue and various other markings scattered across its surface. Her eye was drawn to a cluster of red pins off to the northwest. Watts had written, _'Territorial?'_ and drawn a circle around them.

"Probably Crucible," she whispered. "We need to find something else."

"What do want, blueprints with big dumb weaknesses written all over them?"

Emerald didn't answer. Watts was _such _an arrogant prick—he had to have left _something _incriminating lying around. Something they could bring with them, to show that they hadn't... weren't...

"—latest incident at Atlas Dragonry."

She jumped and whirled around, to find Mercury frozen with his hand on an old-fashioned screen set into one wall. Lisa Lavender's face filled the screen, and she was talking _much too loudly _about an attack in Atlas.

Emerald glared at him. "What kind of _genius _pushes random buttons in a mad scientist's lab?!"

"I'm not the one who wanted to come in here!"

He went to turn the screen off again, then froze. Storm had appeared—covered from nose to tail in gleaming armor, and barreling towards a group of Council goons with rifles. They were shooting at her, but it didn't seem like it was doing very much. One wing was limp and tied up in a sling. And Ruby was there, bent close to her dragon's neck.

"Turn it off," Emerald blurted.

He did.

"Well," he said, trying for a grin. "I guess your dumb idea just saved us a lot of random flying around. But we should probably get back to spying or whatever."

Emerald left Mercury poking through the piles of papers more or less at random, and moved towards Watts' office. He had a terminal beside his desk, several filing cabinets, even _more _papers... She tried the terminal, but ran into a brick wall. Password protected.

Then she stepped back, and noticed for the first time that there was a _rug _under his desk.

Fifteen seconds later, she'd beckoned Mercury over and was about halfway through picking the lock hidden beneath the rug. Finally she heard a click and yanked open the safe. A draft of stale air struck her. The dark opening yawned wide, and a set of metal stairs led downwards and out of sight.

"Fuck me," Mercury breathed. "What do you bet Cinder doesn't know about this?"

Emerald bit her lip and whispered, "Not my life." He grinned. It was creepy, seeing an earnest expression like that on his face. She punched his arm to make him stop.

The hospital smell was stronger underground. Mercury made a gagging noise and pulled his shirt up over his nose, giving her a view of his stomach she neither needed nor wanted. The only light in the room was the pale blue glow of the terminal, and it made him look sickly and pale. Dark shadows clung to walls and ceiling alike, and she couldn't shake the paranoid sense that they were being watched... which they probably were. There was no way Watts didn't have cameras down here.

They needed to get what they came for and go, but that was easier said than done when neither of them really knew what they were looking for. Not sure where else to start, Emerald approached the terminal.

A metal plate lay on the desk beside it, connected to the main terminal by so many cables and wires that it looked like a gigantic many-legged spider. It must have been a scroll, at some point, though the screen had been removed to expose the circuitry beneath.

She let out a long, shaky breath. Then she tried for a smirk. "This looks important."

"Grab it and let's _go."_

It wasn't obvious which cables went where, or how to disconnect it without damaging anything, so Emerald just grabbed it and yanked it free. Sparks popped. The terminal went dead. Complete and utter darkness descended over them, accompanied by a silence made deafening by the lack of alarms. Of course, Watts wouldn't want this room making noise if Cinder didn't know about it.

Then, light. Two points of flaming molten orange, with vicious slitted pupils.

Emerald lurched backwards, crashed into the desk, and sent papers and metal odds and ends skittering in every direction. Mercury swore. More lights came on—emergency lights, whose dull red glow revealed a dozen hatchlings sitting around the edges of the room. They were a whirl of unfamiliar shapes and colors, completely unrecognizable, definitely hybrids. All were eerily silent. All wore Watts' devices.

The slit-pupiled dragonet hurled itself at Emerald. It was barely the length of her forearm, and went flying when she pushed it away, but it left long gouges in her arm. They didn't bleed—its claws had seared the wounds shut.

Others were only instants behind. Mercury grunted as the biggest of them crashed into his chest and knocked him onto his back. Emerald kicked it hard in the side, but not before its teeth sank into his shoulder. He let out a muffled scream and rolled them both over, so that all its weight came down on one of its tiny wings. It didn't let go.

More were coming—but slowly, unsteadily. One dragonet dragged itself towards them using only its front legs, its hind ones too thin and weak to hold any of its weight. Another snapped sluggishly at her ankles, one eye gummed shut and the other distant and unfocused.

The slit-pupiled dragonet froze in mid-leap. Its breathing hitched, and it made a quiet, pathetic choking noise. Then there was a sound like a firecracker going off, and a flash of light so bright that she could see its teeth silhouetted against the scaly flesh of its muzzle. Gouts of acrid smoke curled from its mouth and nostrils.

The big one pressed its paws against Mercury's chest, the muscles in its neck straining. In a sudden panic, Emerald sprinted around the back of the desk and kicked out. It smashed into the dragonet and knocked it off of him with a sickening tearing sound. He was already struggling upright, his face gone milky white and his shirt slick with blood. She pulled him the rest of the way up and together they staggered towards the stairs.

A hiss. Emerald gave Mercury a shove that sent him sprawling across the foot of the stairs just before the slit-pupiled dragonet leaped for him. It landed in between them, its gaze fixed on the scroll in her hands.

"Rudder!" Mercury roared—but their dragons wouldn't be able to fit down here. Emerald backed up a pace, almost tripping over one of the other hatchlings. It had left a glittering trail from the place it had been sitting. It didn't even bite her, but only butted its head pathetically against her bare calf, trembling and weeping silver.

The slit-pupiled one shuddered. Another crack, another flash of light illuminating the creature from the inside. It whimpered from the strain of holding the stuff in. Probably programmed not to use its powers inside lab. Mercury had finally recovered from her shove, and was dragging himself back up the steps, one by one.

The door, the stairs, Mercury... they all felt so far away. The tips of her fingers and toes tingled.

Emerald stumbled into the wall, her vision blurring until she could barely make out individual dragonets as they sank tiny needle-claws into her legs. The stairway was empty, now, the slit-pupiled dragonet crouched and waiting in front of it. The big one was getting back to its feet.

Something came sailing down the stairwell and struck the slit-pupiled hatchling square on the back of its head. It hissed and reeled, its wings flaring. Emerald lurched forward. The ground pitched and swayed underneath her, and she crashed headfirst into the stairs.

"Emerald!"

Her hands must belong to someone else. Or maybe these were gloves, instead—thick and numb and useless.

She blinked. There was something _in _her hands. She'd forgotten about that. A dead spider, all its legs plucked off. Doctor Watts would be angry if they got it out of here.

Emerald hauled herself to her feet. Seven stairs. Then six—and then the slit-pupiled dragonet was there, clinging to the underside of the stairs, its mouth open to bite. But its scales melted right through, and within seconds it was on its back, shaking off drops of molten steel. She dragged herself over one step, and then the next, and finally tripped over the threshold. There she lay, sprawled on the cold floor of Watts' office, with the scroll still clutched in her unfeeling palm.

* * *

"Emerald! Emerald, _get up!"_

She groaned and rolled onto her side. Mercury gave her hand a tug, but he couldn't lift her with his right arm hanging uselessly at his side. Grimacing, he knelt down by her head.

"Em?"

Her eyes were open, but she seemed to be looking at something a few feet past him.

"There's no way Cinder knows about this. If we find her..." He grimaced. If she'd been on a hair-trigger before, she'd turn downright nuclear now. Unless she _did _know what Watts was keeping in his basement lab, in which case she'd definitely kill them.

But... "I can't pick you up. So either I have to go find her, or—"

"No."

Mercury let out a shaky breath. "Okay. Then you've gotta get up."

He had to help—whatever the dragonets had done to her, her balance was completely shot. Mercury caught himself feeling _glad _that he'd had the biggest of them try and rip his arm off. But together they got her upright, and from there he could sling her over his good shoulder and stumble towards the door.

The dragonets didn't follow. It was eerily silent outside the basement lab, like nothing had ever happened. They passed through the outer lab with its maelstrom of papers. Halfway through, the butchered scroll slipped between Emerald's fingers. Mercury managed to catch it between two fingers and shove it in his pocket. Emerald leaned over his shoulder and threw up on the pristine white floor.

"Awesome," Mercury grumbled. "You owe me a new shirt."

She mumbled something he didn't understand, then poked his injured shoulder.

"Fuck, that hurts!"

"Already ruined it," she slurred.

"Nah, it would've looked badass. Puke stains don't have the same—"

And they were out the door, and Jade and Rudder were fretting over them, their frantic whimpers getting louder and louder until Mercury shushed them. The sun had set while they were inside, and the valley was thick with suspicious shadows.

"Jade!" He held Emerald out to her, and she took her rider gently by the back of her shirt and lifted her onto her back. "Okay. Emerald, the straps—"

"On it." She leaned down and fumbled with the first of them for several agonizing seconds.

"...Fuck."

Mercury reached up one-handed to help, but between the two of them they'd still only managed to fasten four of them when he heard twigs snapping in the forest up ahead. Paprika's nose emerged from between the trees, her teeth bared.

He flung himself at Rudder and shouted, _"Go!"_

Jade bolted just in time to dodge a swipe of the pit dragon's claws. Rudder had to sprint in the opposite direction before he finally got to the slope that led out of the valley. Already lights were coming on, and Cinder's loyal riders were poking their heads out of the cabins.

Mercury just managed to haul himself into the saddle before Rudder reached the top of the valley and took off. Jade was already circling overhead, calling out in alarm. Malevolent shadows detached themselves from the trees. Glory slashed at Jade, who only barely managed to duck under her outstretched claws.

"That way!" he shouted, pointing northwest. Both their dragons put on desperate bursts of speed, eating away the miles, but they still had two pit dragons on their tail and more were rising from the woods to join them.

The valley was long gone, now. Mercury tried to estimate the miles in his head. Were they angling too far north?

And then, finally, he saw it—a column of smoke trickling out of the mouth of a massive cave set into a distant mountain.

* * *

At any other time, Jade would have balked at the prospect of flying over that mountain. But she could feel Emerald swaying back and forth in the saddle, and they had to get rid of the pit dragons chasing them. So she flapped towards it with all her strength and bellowed, _"Crucible!"_

Ruddy light spilled from the cave's entrance. Then his head snaked out of the opening, visible even from miles away. His shriek of rage echoed off the mountainside and made the trees below them shiver.

Jade flew straight at him. Closer now, and closer, until she could see his eyes glowing. "They're after us!" she called out. "Please—"

Fire.

She squawked and folded her wings against her body, dropping like a stone to evade the blast. The world tilted, and she could hear leather straps creaking ominously. Then, as she spun back upright, one snapped. Then another. The last two were too loose, she could feel Emerald slipping free, and then she was clinging to Jade's neck with both arms to stay in the saddle.

_"Hate you!" _Crucible shrieked. Another jet of fire. Jade banked right.

She could feel it happen. Weight sliding sideways, as inevitable as gravity, the order of the world going askew. Emerald's arms slackened, and she slipped into open air.

Jade dove for her. For an instant they were suspended together in the air, and she could see Emerald's face, her eyes wide and unblinking despite the howling wind and the hair whipping across her face. Then she snatched her up in her claws and clutched her safe against her chest.

Crucible kept screaming. _"No more! Go away! No—"_

Glory darted past him. His eyes caught the glint of the metal plate and narrowed to slits. Then he threw himself at her, howling, a terrible red light building in his open maw as she struggled—Jade looked away. With a burst of speed and dove under cover of the trees, out of sight of their pursuers.

Emerald wasn't moving. Jade laid her gently on the ground and nuzzled at her side. Her rider smelled different, like something essential had been lost in the fall. She was being too loud, she knew, but she didn't care.

Mercury slid off Rudder's back and stumbled over to them. He made shushing gestures with his good hand, then gave up and wrapped it around her neck—it was warm, and not at all what she wanted. She pushed him away.

He knelt down. Placed two fingers under Emerald's jaw and held them there for a long time.

"Hey—" His voice broke. "We gotta keep flying, okay? So we can get her some help."

Jade gathered up her rider and launched herself into the sky.


	85. Getting to the Root

**Hello again! Here's another chapter, starring a cat flap, a blueprint, and a new face.**

* * *

**85\. Getting to the Root**

* * *

"You're joking."

"I rarely do," Glynda said. And Ilia couldn't really argue with her. Not when was standing right in front if it, staring at the... well...

It was a giant cat flap. In the Lieutenant's cell.

Gigas poked his head out experimentally. Then he made a gleeful twanging sound and went tearing out of the barn. He tripped at the door and tumbled nose-over-tail down a small hill, only to scramble to his feet and take off running again.

"How did you get Ironwood to put that in?" Ilia asked, awed despite herself.

She shrugged. "He's been running loose since Vacuo without doing any harm. It's his rider we need to worry about."

Ilia didn't know what to say to that. Fortunately she didn't have to figure it out—Gigas bolted back in through the other door, his tongue lolling out as he panted. Then he threw himself back through the little door and, judging by the noises from inside, pounced on his rider.

There was a sad smile on the professor's face that made Ilia feel like she was trespassing. She turned to go, but Glynda followed her out of the barn, and away from the joyful barking of the dragonet.

"Have you spoken to Justice?"

Ilia's throat went very dry. "Yeah," she said, trying to look nonchalant. "I asked him if he wanted to fight when we got to Atlas. He said yes, obviously." She didn't mention the part where she'd offered to sneak away, if he wanted. He still hadn't taken her up on it.

Glynda hummed. "It's a start."

"What?" Ilia demanded. "What _else _am I supposed to do? He wants to go back, and they'd kill us."

"You were quite right not to return to the White Fang, yes."

"But you—" Ilia cut off in mid-sentence when Glynda raised an eyebrow. _"What."_

"It's important to ask how he feels and what he wants. It's even more important to _listen._ Even when what he wants is impossible. Even—_especially—_when you don't particularly want to hear it. Otherwise, he may start to feel that it's a wasted effort to express those things, and you'll find it very difficult to understand him."

"I can't—"

_"Try."_

Ilia swallowed. If she'd done it before they left the Fang, maybe... but she'd left him alone, even if she'd come back. Even if she hadn't meant to. Could she really—

"Don't." She looked up, startled. The professor's eyes flashed. "It is _not _too late."

Her skin turned a sickly greenish-grey. "I know! I just..."

"Go. Now."

Ilia found him curled up behind the fire stables. She slowed as she approached, her insides churning uneasily, but she made herself walk up to him and put her hand on his neck.

"You ate?" she asked.

Justice snorted and put his head back down on his paws. Ilia sat by his shoulder, leaning into him, letting herself relax against his warm scales.

"How... how are you feeling?"

It came out awkward and unsure. He stared at her, his ears twitching in confusion.

"Right now. Do you... like it here?"

Justice huffed. "No."

Ilia flinched. "I'm sorry."

Again that look, like he thought he must be missing something. She cleared her throat and forced herself to say, "Why didn't you want to leave the Fang? I thought you hated it there."

His ears drooped, and Ilia added hurriedly, "I'm not angry! It's just... I never asked. I should have."

"Guss," he said. "Ffluck. Harr...rrn... grr." Justice stopped, annoyed that his tongue had completely failed to wrap around any of their names.

And just like that, she felt like an idiot.

"You like them a lot, don't you?"

"Gud," he said, and curled his tail a little tighter around himself.

"And that's why you want to stay here? Because it's where Gigas is?"

Justice bobbed his head.

Ilia frowned. "So... why not leave Haven?"

He hesitated. Then, reluctantly, "Rrud."

Her heart lurched. Rudder, the one with the _trained assassin _for a rider. In retrospect, she was kind of glad she hadn't known about that while it was still going on.

"It's okay," she assured Justice, who had hunched his shoulders miserably. "It's alright, it's just... his rider is dangerous. That's all."

"Nno talk," Justice said. "Sat. Sstars."

"Okay. So you missed him? But there were other dragons in the Fang, why not—"

"No talk." Justice's tail started to twitch back and forth. "No talk. No..."

"I know. I know you didn't talk to Rudder. But Harbinger the others—" Ilia stopped. Justice made a low keening noise, and... _oh._

"No... want... lone," he mumbled. "Bad."

"You're not," Ilia promised. "We're staying, this time. You can make friends, and—I'll be here. Okay?"

But Justice kept coiling himself even smaller.

Ilia threw herself around his neck, flushing pale yellow with shame. "I never wanted to leave, I swear. I just—they were going to kill us if we didn't go, and I didn't know what to do, and I thought you'd follow me. And I tried to go back, but there were people everywhere and I couldn't find you." Her eyes squeezed shut. "I'm sorry!"

A shadow fell over her, as Justice folded them both under his wing. "Nno?" he said.

"No!" She wiped her face furiously. "Why would you think—?"

His ears drooped. "Hurt... 'oomans."

"Oh." Ilia stroked his nose. "That's not... I wasn't angry with you. I was just scared. In the Fang, we see the worst of them, all the time." She tried to smile, but it came out twisted. "I guess I can't really speak from experience, but not all of them are like that. Those hikers? They couldn't have hurt us. And it felt like I'd messed up, like I'd dragged you into so many fights that you thought..."

Justice nuzzled at her side. She hugged his snout, and let out a shaky breath.

"Is that... did that help?"

He hummed deep in his chest, a sound she could feel right down in her bones. "Gud," he purred, and shut his eyes.

* * *

"Pyrrha? Have you seen—"

The sound of footsteps stopped.

"Uh... I could come back?"

Pyrrha blew a lock of hair out of her eyes, just long enough to see Sun standing awkwardly in the doorway of one of the dorms. She didn't get a good look—Harpy's head and front paws were resting on her back, which made it difficult to see much of anything aside from the paving stones of the courtyard.

"No need," she said, though she wasn't sure how well he could hear her. "Did you want something?"

"Just looking for Huo..." He walked around Harpy to get a better look at her predicament.

She sort of wished he wouldn't.

"Glad you two are getting along," he said, his voice shaking a little with suppressed laughter.

"As am I."

Sun snorted. "You're a bit of a handful, huh?" he told Harpy.

She hissed at him—which also meant that she raised her head, so Pyrrha could finally get back to her feet. Or at least that was the plan. Somehow she ended up sitting against the dragon's chest, pinned under one foreleg. Her hair was still in her face.

"I was hoping to get up soon," she said, twisting her head to look at Harpy.

A little huff. Then, finally, she was released. She scratched the hybrid in her favorite spot, just under her chin. With Sun there, Harpy tried to pretend to be disinterested, but one of her back legs started tapping against the ground.

It felt... odd. Her scales were always warm, as if she'd just spent hours baking under the sun, and rough as sandpaper. Not like petting Twiggy at all.

"You're doing okay?" Sun asked. Then, with a smirk in Harpy's direction, "She seems like she'd give Huo a run for his money."

Pyrrha frowned, confused. He'd looked at her hands—and when she glanced at them herself, she noticed that her knuckles had split again. "Oh, this. It's fine, just dry air."

It was a bit irritating, she had to admit, but as far as she could tell Harpy wasn't doing it deliberately—the air was just drier around her, like a little patch of desert had followed them to Atlas. Usually harmless, but she was developing a problem with chapped lips and the occasional nosebleed.

"Here." Sun tossed something at her, and Pyrrha caught it instinctively. She looked down and frowned at an unopened tube of Vaseline.

"Oh. Thank you? Why do you...?"

"Don't worry about it!" he said, and wandered off.

Harpy sniffed at the tube in her hand—but it was plastic, and she got bored of it almost instantly. Cautiously, Pyrrha backed up a step.

The dragon's head snapped around, and her tail curled jealously around her. Pyrrha sighed and patted the nose pressed against her side. "Let's go find the others," she suggested.

Harpy was distinctly unimpressed.

Pyrrha folded her arms. "They're my friends. I won't start avoiding them."

Harpy pulled away. She coiled around herself, her wings slightly hunched, and fixed her gaze on the distant sunset.

_Deep breaths._ "You don't want to come with me?"

Silence. Then, slowly, in spite of herself, one of Harpy's ears rotated towards her.

"We could bring Gigas."

That sold it. Pyrrha honestly had no idea what she would have done if Gigas wasn't around. He seemed almost as friendly as his rider was belligerent, and so excited by all the new sights and smells of Atlas Academy that he could never keep still. Pyrrha never saw him speak to Harpy directly—but she liked having him around, and he'd go with them if she told him Guang would be there.

It was already something of an effort for Gigas to squirm through the smaller door in the stall. Before long he'd be even broader at the shoulder than his rider was, and she wasn't sure what the General planned to do then. He greeted them as coldly as he knew how—with one back foot on his stubby tail to keep it from wagging, and doing his best to pretend he wasn't smelling them.

Justice also joined them on the way. Pyrrha didn't plan it, exactly, but they ran across him and Ilia half-hidden behind a building, and the fire dragon caught Harpy's smell and picked his head up. He hissed at Harpy, shot Gigas a frustrated glare, and pointedly ignored them both... while following a few dozen feet behind them. From behind him, Ilia winced and spread her hands helplessly.

"Um, hello!" Pyrrha called out. Her teammates were in a familiar arrangement, with Freya and Ren lying in the grass and Nora and Guang racing across the lawn—but Jaune and Twiggy stood off to one side, not participating.

"Ruh!" Twiggy barked.

Harpy started to growl. "Just try," Pyrrha murmured, and patted the side of her neck.

"Pyrrha!" Nora raced over to her, with Ao Guang hot on her heels. He trotted a little past her, though, and yipped in delight when Gigas made a flying leap onto the top of his head. Ren and Freya followed much more slowly.

And then, finally, she reached Jaune and hugged him. It was the first chance they'd had to be together all day. So she buried her face in his shoulder and relaxed into the warmth of it. Pulled back, just enough to kiss him—only for Twiggy to take that as an opening to lick her face.

Pyrrha saw a flash of her own disappointment on Jaune's face, before they both turned to lavish attention on Twiggy. Then Harpy was slinking towards them, her eyes narrowed, and she had to spend the next several minutes scratching under her chin.

Ilia chose that moment to turn a slightly alarming shade of greenish-yellow, and one distraction led to another. Justice started lecturing Gigas, an alarming prospect even if Pyrrha couldn't see Harpy glaring at him. Then he and Nora ran into one another chasing the stick—and despite the fact Gigas hardly seemed to have noticed, and she ended up on the ground, both Harpy and Justice drew themselves up as if ready for a fight. It took the combined efforts of Pyrrha, Ilia, Ren, _and _Gigas to calm them down.

"Never a dull moment, huh?" Jaune said, with a little grin.

Pyrrha smiled back. "I wish we could—"

And then Harpy snapped at Twiggy, or maybe it was the other way around—but they had to coax the two dragons apart, and Pyrrha finally gave up and led Harpy away.

"I wish you wouldn't fight with her," she said, when the others were out of earshot.

Harpy tossed her head and huffed.

Pyrrha walked with her around Atlas' campus. Harpy didn't trust people—she suspected that was the underlying problem. So perhaps it was too much to ask for her to acclimate to three strangers and their dragons, all at once.

She sighed and stroked Harpy's side. "I know it's hard," she said, half to herself, "but we have to keep trying."

* * *

"Miss Rose."

Ruby jumped, made an embarrassing squeaking noise that she _really _hoped _General Ironwood_ didn't hear, and whirled around. "Oh! Hi! Um, sir?"

He gave her a stiff bow, then moved into the doorway of the stall. It was Storm's, at least for now—a lot of Atlas students had apparently left before the Council showed up, so there were plenty of empty ones to choose from. She sniffed him curiously. He stared at the metal plate still fixed to her forehead, with a calculating look in his eyes.

"Sorry to barge in on you like this. I would have asked you to come to my office, but I thought that Storm should hear all this as well."

Ruby winced. His office was probably near the top of the CCT tower, like Ozpin's. There was a landing platform up there, and a door big enough for a dragon to get inside... but Storm couldn't reach it.

"And this is... Penny. Correct?"

"Uh, yeah." Ruby glanced at Penny—her light had turned green, which meant she was listening. "Or, I mean, I called her that and she seems to like it, so...?"

"Excellent." The General examined the metal plate. "I understand that she's... rather more alive than we originally intended."

Storm drew her head back a little.

"She is," Ruby said, as confidently as she could.

Ironwood sighed. "Well. I suppose she should... meet... her designer."

"I don't know if _designer _is the word I'd use."

Ruby almost jumped out of her skin as first one, then two, then three pairs of legs came around the corner. She went slightly cross-eyed before she realized that two of them belonged to the man's chair—then he was smiling at her, and she was looking frantically back and forth between him and Penny.

"Pietro Polendina," he said, holding out a hand. "And I've heard quite a bit about you and Storm, here."

She almost missed shaking it—she was too busy staring at Penny, whose light was flickering rapidly from yellow to red. Storm poked her head out to sniff him.

Finally, Penny's light turned back to green. And, haltingly, "You... made me?"

"I wouldn't give me that much credit!" the man said, beaming. "I gave you the tools, so to speak, for you to make yourself."

"Without warning anyone _else _working on the project," Ironwood grumbled.

Pietro waved him quiet. "Yes, yes, that's beside the point. We have a proposition for you, my dear!"

Ruby glanced nervously at Penny. "Um... a what?"

"A body!"

Ironwood sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, while Pietro unrolled a blueprint with a flourish. And on it...

"Whoa," Ruby whispered.

Penny's light went yellow. "A dragon body?"

"Indeed! It's a little clunky just now, I'm afraid, but I'm sure once you've tested it out you'll be able to suggest plenty of improvements. Ah, and it isn't built yet, either. We have the armor, but it'll take some time to cobble together a skeleton, and of course there's the flight mechanism to consider!"

Yellow. Red. Yellow...

"Can I think about it?" Penny asked.

Ironwood frowned. Opened his mouth—

"Of course you can!" Pietro gave her chassis, and Storm's head, an affectionate pat. "Take all the time you need! After all, now we know... you're..." He trailed off, frowning. "Does anyone else hear roaring?"

All five of them piled outside. The sky was mostly clear, except for a scattering of ships and dragons protecting the city from flying Grimm—and three dark spots hurtling straight towards the school. A few airships seemed to be trying to follow them. Ironwood's scroll sounded an alarm. Then the spots resolved themselves into dragons. Familiar dragons.

Ruby stared, openmouthed, as Tempest streaked towards her. And behind her...

"Oh my god!" She threw her arms around Storm's neck in excitement. "Ragnar! He's alive!"


	86. Three Small Ones

**This chapter, _Schneeblings._ Also, Penny asks Storm an important question.**

* * *

When Glacier and the rest of the dragons flew north, Whitley hoped they were heading to the tip of Vale.

When they flew out over the ocean, he hoped they would turn towards northern Anima.

When they kept moving north, he still clung to the thought that maybe, just maybe, their destination was in Mantle.

Now they flew over Atlas itself, the city sparkling like the inside of a geode, cracked open and hovering suspended above the tundra. He could see the manor from here—which meant _they _would see _Glacier._ He'd known this was coming, but his heart still sank.

They didn't have much trouble entering Atlesian airspace, which was so strange that it almost distracted Whitley from his imminent return home. Only airships were out patrolling. The Flight Squad was conspicuously absent.

Except, he soon realized, clusters of riders within the academy itself, and even soldiers with rifles around its perimeter. Which... seemed to be where Ragnar was going. They swept straight over the manor, on a collision course for the tower, until Ragnar roared a greeting and landed hard in the courtyard. Glacier half-collapsed beside him. Both were breathing hard, and the ice dragon was wheezing slightly. Whitley patted his chest.

Tempest, meanwhile, didn't seem fazed at all by the several hours they'd just spent in the air, and immediately started sniffing the air. She barked once, and charged off towards a row of barns. Ragnar grumbled something and followed, his tail dragging on the ground.

Glacier... didn't.

"Where are you going now?" Whitley groaned.

Glacier was obviously looking for _something._ He wandered aimlessly between two buildings, sniffing as he went. Then, apparently already bored, he threw his head back and shrieked. Whitley swore and pressed Rusty's hood down over his ears.

From somewhere on the other side of the campus, there came an answering cry. Glacier's ears perked up tall. His tail wagged so enthusiastically that he knocked over a lamppost. Then he took off at a dead sprint, with Whitley clinging to his back for dear life.

"Glacier!" he shouted. "Glacier, what are you _do—"_

They turned a corner. And there they were—Winter, one hand on the gun at her hip, her eyes narrowed warily. Weiss, staring at them open-mouthed. A faunus girl behind them he didn't recognize. Steele, an ice dragon that must belong to Weiss, and another completely unfamiliar one that was probably the stranger's.

"Glacier?" Winter blurted. "How did you—" Then, finally, she recognized him._ "Whitley!"_

Whitley did not want to get down. But Glacier grabbed him by the hood and deposited him in front of his sisters with a self-satisfied bark. Like they'd been playing fetch and he'd just come back from a very long throw.

He folded his arms. "This isn't—"

But before he could get more than a word out, Weiss collided with him so hard he almost lost his feet. "You idiot! Where have you_ been?"_

Whitley squirmed free. "The woods," he said, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. Weiss followed the motion.

"Wait. Is that...?"

Winter stepped forward before she could finish the question. And, for the second time today, someone was hugging him. She, at least, released him immediately afterward. He inched backwards towards Glacier.

"What happened?" Winter demanded. "We were told you'd escaped weeks ago. Why didn't you contact us?"

"I don't have my scroll." He found he couldn't quite look her in the face, and ended up staring at the new ice dragon instead.

"That's not an exp—" But Glacier chose that moment to butt his head into the conversation. Winter sighed and muttered something under her breath. Weiss reached forward cautiously and stroked the dragon's snout.

"Thank you," she said, smiling. "For keeping him safe."

There were a few choice things Whitley could probably say to that... but he found himself patting Glacier's neck instead. His tail tore up another lamppost.

Winter rolled her eyes in exasperation and said, _"Fine, _but you're going to give us the full story later."

"Are you hurt?" Weiss added. "I—" Glacier bumped her with his nose, almost knocking her over. "What?" she huffed, and switched to scratching under his chin.

He whistled three notes. Nudged her again.

"I don't know what you're—"

Five more notes. Another nudge.

Weiss' eyes widened. She glanced over her shoulder at Whitley and turned slightly pink. "I don't know about—"

He whined pitifully.

"Ugh, alright! Alright! Stop looking at me like that." She cleared her throat and hummed the same liquid trill that Glacier had spent weeks perfecting. He joined in halfway through, startling her so much she almost missed the final note.

Everyone except Whitley, even the stranger and her dragon, stared at Glacier. He kept whistling cheerfully, stopping occasionally to sniff Winter or Weiss and get another scratch behind the ears.

It was easier to look at the strangers. The faunus, who probably would have been a lot more intimidating if she hadn't been wearing a soft little half-smile. Her bulky earth dragon who was watching them with interest.

And the ice dragon. The young ice dragon his sister _already had._

He could look at them, instead. He couldn't ignore Glacier's back paw thumping delightedly against the ground.

* * *

So. Many. _Smells._

Glacier bumped his nose against the singing one, his eyes fluttering closed. These small ones smelled even more like Jacques.

Three pairs of hands. Scratches and pats. Singing.

He purred and, reluctantly, pulled back. Couldn't get too sleepy, now, not with the strangers there. One faunus, one dragon. He sat up, watching them, but they were both staying at a respectable distance. Good.

There was one other he didn't know. A small one, but a dragon. Glacier sniffed him warily.

"Hello," he said, blinking deep black eyes. "Um... are you my dad?"

Glacier stared at him. "Dad?"

"The riders have them." The small dragon shuffled his paws. "I thought, since you're so big..."

"He's not our dad," Steele cut in.

Glacier flicked his tail. He didn't care if he was a dad or not. "Singing one. Yours?"

The small dragon's ears perked up. "Oh! Yes, Weiss sings!" His tail thumped the ground. "She's very good."

"Glacier." The singing one patted the small dragon's flank. "This is Specter."

Specter smelled good. Like fresh snow.

"You protect."

He sat up, his tail twitching eagerly. "Yes! I always keep her safe."

"Good."

Glacier turned away to greet Steele. They touched noses. "It's good to see you again," Steele told him. "Winter was worried about you both."

He hummed, and bent to investigate the steely one again. She patted him absentmindedly, but mostly she was busy talking to the small Jacques.

"—stop _fussing," _he snapped. "I'm fine! We were only in danger in the beginning. Then we were just wandering all over Solitas because _someone _didn't want to go north until now."

Glacier blinked. He suspected he might be someone, so he licked the small Jacques until he spluttered. "Fine, _fine! _Never mind the fact that we'd have been here weeks ago if you'd just listened to me."

He whined.

"Ugh." The small Jacques scratched his favorite spot, right between his ears. "You're so needy."

"I've never seen him so affectionate before," the Steely one murmured. Glacier licked her, too, and then the Singing one for good measure. They were good—and now he could protect them like he protected the small Jacques.

Well, maybe not quite like that. They could have other dragons, but the small Jacques was his.

* * *

Once the initial reunion was over, Blake decided to approach the group. She was curious to finally meet Whitley, after only hearing about him through his kidnapping. She knew he liked to play the piano... but that was about it. Just now he was talking to his sisters, still petting Glacier as the dragon fawned over all three of them.

Then Blake stepped up beside Weiss—and the great head turned. Spines rose all along his neck, and his fathomless eyes fixed on her. He made a noise, like pine trees groaning in a frigid wind.

Weiss jumped in front of her and shoved her, hard enough that Blake almost fell over. In the same instant, Whitley too threw himself between them—but he was glaring at _her._ All barely-a-hundred pounds of scrawny teenager brought to the defense of a dragon that was bigger than most buildings.

"It's alright, Glacier," Weiss said carefully, and gestured for Blake to keep backing up. She didn't need to be told twice. "She's a friend. She's not going to hurt you."

He hissed again, clearly unconvinced.

Weiss winced. "I'm sorry. He's, um..."

"He bites." Whitley raised his chin defiantly, like he was daring her to argue.

Blake didn't doubt him—she retreated all the way back to an anxious Pit, who hovered over her so that she was looking at Weiss and her family between his forelegs.

She probably shouldn't have been surprised. He and Whitley had been kidnapped by the White Fang, and the gods only knew what had been happening to him at the Schnee manor while Weiss and Winter were away. Still... she hated not knowing if Glacier was being so hostile because he'd been mistreated, or because of her ears.

Another glance at his narrowed eyes and flattened ears... definitely the former. Maybe both.

So Blake watched from an uncomfortable distance—too far to hear everything that was said, and much too far for a human to hear anything, but close enough that she caught snatches of the conversation. They were enough to make her smile. Both sisters' relief was obvious even from her Glacier-approved vantage point, and after everything that had happened, Weiss deserved a good day.

Whitley started to speak, and the words Blake heard made it clear he was telling the story of his kidnapping. "—completely irresponsible!" Winter burst out. "Even _if_ you hadn't—frozen to death!"

Glacier waited.

Weiss made an odd lurching motion and covered her mouth with one hand—trying and failing not to laugh. Her brother folded his arms indignantly. "—_not _funny! I was twenty feet in the air!"

Glacier's tail flicked.

"—boy with Ragnar?" Weiss asked. Whitley went oddly stiff and said something back that made Winter put a hand over her mouth to hide a smirk.

Glacier waited some more. His hind legs tensed.

Before Blake could call out a warning, the ice dragon pounced—and swept up all three of them off their feet. There were three identical yelps, followed by a curse from Whitley, as Glacier loafed onto his back with them on top of him.

"Glacier, _no!" _Whitley snapped. "Put us—_ouch, _Weiss, get your elbow out of my face!"

The dragon's only response was a happy bark. He arched his neck to peer at them, his ears perking straight up. Specter looked at Steele, as if to ask if they were supposed to be doing anything about this.

"Win," Steele said, and bent to lick her face. "Gud?"

"Apart from the knee in my diaphragm," Winter grumbled, "Yes."

That was all the permission Specter needed to join him and Glacier in nuzzling at the three riders. Eventually Weiss managed to squirm free of the tangle of limbs—both human and draconic—and made the mistake of looking at Glacier. She stood up on his stomach and crossed her arms. "Put us down."

He whined.

Weiss put a hand to her face. "Fine. You're worse than Ruby."

Once they stopped trying to escape, Glacier released the siblings and rolled onto his side, his neck and tail coiled into a loose circle. He didn't even need to demand attention, at that point—Whitley knelt by his head with the resigned air of someone who'd done this many times before, while Winter and Weiss approached his neck and stomach a little more cautiously. His eyes started to droop within seconds. Before a minute had passed, he was fast asleep.

The three Schnees stepped carefully over his tail to avoid waking him. They wandered closer to where Blake still stood, helpless to squash her own grin.

Whitley heaved a put-upon sigh, opened his mouth to speak—and squawked in outrage when Weiss grabbed him in another hug. "I thought we were done with this!"

"He's so much happier," she said, beaming. "I'm proud of you."

Her brother froze. Turned an alarming shade of red. Spluttered something even Blake couldn't make out, and fled back to Glacier's side. Winter watched him go, smiling fondly. Then it faded into a frown. "Whitley is good for him. I just hope..."

"I'd rather not _hope," _Weiss said, scowling. "Especially if we can keep them away from them instead."

"We'll try." Winter glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping Glacier. "That's all we can do. It's ultimately his choice, and..."

"...I know."

* * *

"I can't believe you're here!" Ruby threw her arms around Tempest's neck, then Ragnar's, as the third dragon, an _ice _dragon, trotted off on his own. Storm greeted them, too, and froze when Tempest noticed her wing.

"Um," she said, curling into herself.

Tempest nudged the wing gently with her nose. "I'm sorry, little one."

"I mean, how did you know we'd be in Atlas? And, wait, weren't you at the broodery with York? What about—" Then she cut off abruptly, noticing for the first time the boy sitting on Ragnar's back. "Oh! Uh, hi!"

"Hi?" He gave her a little wave.

"Scarr," Ragnar said, and lifted him off his back.

"What?" Ironwood approached them, staring from Ragnar to the boy and back. "Who is this?"

He hunched his shoulders. "No one, really. I mean, I'm Oscar! But I'm not, um... I just found him."

Ragnar snorted in disapproval. "Scar gud. Nno Scar, no Rraknar."

"Um," Oscar squeaked.

Ironwood chuckled. "Well, _regardless."_ He stepped forward and put a hand on Ragnar's snout. "It's good to see you again, old friend."

Ragnar's ears and tail drooped, even as he nuzzled into the General's touch. "Gud," he agreed. "Want ffight."

Ironwood nodded. "I thought you might. And we certainly won't turn down help against the Council. Especially if..." He trailed off. "Hang on, there was another dragon a moment ago."

"Lace," Tempest said.

The General frowned. Then, slowly, realization dawned. "Glacier is _here? _How?"

Ragnar shrugged like their riders sometimes did—it looked a little odd from a dragon. Ironwood put a hand to his face. "I see. I'd be willing to bet I know where he went, then... Winter will be able to handle that, for now."

_Storm?_

"Wait, does that mean Whitley's here too?" Ruby asked. "Because Weiss and Winter were super worried."

_Are you alright?_

"Ear," Ragnar agreed.

Storm shuffled her paws and pretended not to hear Penny's voice.

"We'll worry about that in a moment," said Ironwood. "Ragnar, where were you? When we didn't hear from you after the fall, we thought..."

_I know you can hear me._

"Um." Oscar shuffled his feet. "He sort of crashed in the forest near my farm. His wings were hurt pretty badly, so..."

Finally, Storm couldn't ignore it any longer. She slunk back into the barn, and away from the reunion.

_What's wrong? _Penny asked.

_Nothing!_

_...You don't want them to build me a body._

_No!_ Storm said quickly, then slumped. _I don't want you to go away._

_...Oh. _Penny hesitated. _Well, then I won't. I'll tell my father not to build it._

Storm whined and buried her nose under her paws. _Don't do that! You want a body, you should have one._

_I don't need one,_ Penny said, but the words came slow and reluctant.

_You can't lie to me, either._

_But—_

_We can still talk when you have your own body, _Storm insisted. _And then we can play, too, and fight together, and when my wing's healed we can go flying._ She put all the force she could muster into her voice—it was twice as hard to convince them both.

Later, after Ruby and Ironwood and Pietro had gotten the whole story from Ragnar and Tempest, and Oscar was looking like he wanted to bolt, Storm approached the inventor. He looked up, startled. "Oh, hello!"

"Hello," Penny said. "I have made a decision!"


	87. Empty Saddle

**Hello folks! This chapter we've got more of the Schneeblings and Glacier, Harpy learning new things, and newcomers.**

* * *

**87\. Empty Saddle**

* * *

The next morning, Winter was in a meeting with the General and Atlas' remaining professors when an imperious bark interrupted her mid-sentence. She stopped. Sighed. "Would you all excuse me?"

General Ironwood waved her off. "We're just about done here, anyway."

When she strode outside, she found Steele waiting for her with an apologetic droop to his ears. Glacier, on the other hand, showed no sign of remorse. He barked again and gave her a sniff, then nudged her over towards where Whitley and a slightly disheveled Weiss stood at his feet.

"Glacier," she began, "I have to—" He butted his head against her side. She rolled her eyes and stroked his nose. "I have work to do."

Weiss grimaced and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. Her hair was up in an unusually messy ponytail. It occurred to Winter that if this was fairly early for her, it would be _very _early for the students, especially since they were supposed to be getting some much-deserved rest right about now.

"Glacier," she repeated, giving him a stern look. "We will see you _later, _but right now I need to get to work and Weiss needs to go back to sleep."

He stared at her, blinking guilelessly.

She frowned. "Soon," she tried, "just not right _now—"_

"He knows," Whitley said. He seemed completely unsurprised by any of this, and was still wearing the same clothes as he had the day before. "He just wants you to think he doesn't."

Glacier's affronted snort left her brother's hair sticking up in every direction. He smoothed it down again without missing a beat and gave the dragon a shove with all his weight behind it. "Go on," he said. "This way. They'll stay with us for a little while and then go do whatever it is they do all day."

With this compromise reluctantly accepted, Glacier led the way to a small hill overlooking the rest of the campus. The morning air was still chilly—which meant that Whitley was the only one of them who seemed at all comfortable. Weiss, who'd probably gotten dressed before she'd fully woken up, was shivering. She shot a wistful look towards the dorm building she and her friends were staying in. "I don't suppose you'd let me get a blanket?"

Glacier dropped a mud-spattered backpack at her feet.

"Biggest pocket, at the bottom," Whitley said, without looking.

Weiss dug through several books of matches, a thermos, and a waterproof poncho before she found the blanket. She wrinkled her nose a little before draping it over her shoulders. The shivering stopped.

"Where did you get all this?" Winter asked, gesturing at the backpack—and more generally at his boots and coat, which she was quite sure she'd never seen before.

"I stole it."

She choked. "Whitley!"

"What? I had no shoes and no money."

"No _shoes?" _Weiss stared at him. "How did that happen?"

His ears went pink. "That's not the point. And they weren't waterproof, anyway. It's not like they let me pack first."

"...Is that Rusty's jacket?"

Winter blinked. "Who—?"

"Yes." Whitley tugged it a little tighter around himself. "He let me borrow it. I was going to give it back, but... well..."

"He can't have been with _them."_

"I don't think so." Whitley frowned. "I never saw him, and there was someone else in the stables instead. I'm not sure what happened to him."

"Who in Remnant is Rusty?" Winter demanded.

"He works at the stable."

"Since a few years after you left," added Weiss.

"Oh." It hurt more than it had any right to, hearing that. Steele's shoulders hunched a little in sympathy, but he knew her well enough not to say anything.

Glacier had no such compunctions. He whined and bumped her with his nose, and then both her siblings were staring at her. Winter had to resist the urge to scowl at him. She sighed. "I'm... sorry. For leaving you two like that. I know it can't have been easy."

Weiss drew her knees up to her chest. "It wasn't," she said softly. "But I know why you needed to do it. And it helped me leave, too."

Whitley scoffed. "What, am I supposed to thank those brigands for getting me out of the manor, now?"

Winter flinched.

"That's completely different," Weiss snapped.

He rolled his eyes. "If you say so. I didn't notice much of a difference, after she left." Glacier flicked Whitley with his tail. _"Ouch. _What now, you meddling lizard?"

Glacier's eyes narrowed. Whitley gave his head a light shove. "Well, it didn't! It's not as if she was around much to begin with."

_"Whitley!" _Weiss hissed.

"No. I understand." It wasn't until Steele followed her example that Winter was aware she'd stood up. "I should get back to the General," she said, and strode off.

Not fast enough to avoid hearing Weiss blurt, "Winter—", or Glacier's disappointed whine.

* * *

"What?" Whitley huffed, into the silence.

"She's _trying, _Whitley," Weiss snapped.

He scoffed at that, and she had to resist the urge to smack him upside the head. "I didn't think we were in the habit of calling _failure _good enough."

"Since when has _that _attitude done anything except make us miserable?"

"Oh! My mistake! If it'll make her _feel _better to pretend she wasn't wasting her time and ours—"

"Just because you'd rather suck up to _him—"_

A low moan ended the argument as abruptly as if a gunshot had gone off. Glacier had buried his nose in his paws and flattened his ears against his head. He whimpered, once, and huddled his wings tighter around himself.

Both of them deflated at once. Whitley moved to the dragon's side and scratched between his ears until he stopped hiding, and Weiss hummed a few bars of the song he liked so much. "Sorry, Glacier," she murmured. "You're right. We shouldn't be fighting." Not in front of him, anyway.

Glacier opened one eye, then closed it again and lay his head on the ground. His tail flopped lifelessly behind him.

Whitley rolled his eyes. "Don't be such a drama queen. We're not shouting anymore, see?"

He made an affirmative rumbling sound, but still didn't move. Whitley sighed and rubbed his neck. "You'd better not be planning to drag me off to the woods again," he said—though there was a wistful note in his voice. Then, with a visibly pained expression, "I... _suppose _we could bring Winter back here."

One of Glacier's ears flicked lethargically, but he didn't jump at the chance. Whitley frowned. "Glacier? Are you alright?"

He whined again and pressed his nose into Whitley's jacket. Both of them were quiet for a while, focusing on petting him and hoping that might bring a little life back into him. Weiss tried humming to see if he would whistle along. He didn't, but he seemed to like the sound, so she kept it up.

* * *

Whitley wished he was back in Solitas.

Sure, Atlas Dragonry had indoor heating, and real food, and mattresses... but the campfires he and Oscar built were just as warm, and the two of them had just started getting the hang of cooking, and he'd kept sleeping with Glacier in the water barns anyway. And if he had to listen to this _stupid _song one more time—

Well. No. It wasn't stupid when Glacier sang it.

He probably liked being able to sing with someone else.

Minutes passed. Weiss kept singing, and he kept drifting backwards in time to places he didn't much care to go. He wound up tighter and tighter until he would have been glad for _any _interruption.

Even the one he got.

His first warning was footsteps coming around the corner of the earth barn. They were sitting in between it and the water barn—Glacier seemed to like the tight space, and Weiss was probably more comfortable out of the wind. The dragon's ears pricked up, slowly, like moving even that much was an enormous effort.

Then the faunus girl rounded the corner, and he was on his feet so quickly that Weiss and Whitley were both knocked on their backs. He hissed, ruffling up the spines on his neck and face. It somewhat spoiled the effect when he tried to mantle his wings and knocked them against the barn walls instead, but he made up for it by baring his fangs.

She took several long steps back and held her hands at her sides, palm-out. "Sorry," she said, and she would have seemed completely unruffled if her ears hadn't gone flat the same way Glacier's sometimes did. "I didn't know you were back here."

"Oh, for the _love _of—" Weiss pushed herself to her feet and strode out in front of Glacier. _"No."_

He made a confused yipping sound.

Her expression softened. "I know you don't like strangers. It makes perfect sense that you don't. But it's going to be very difficult to spend time with you if you keep hissing at my friends."

Tentatively, Glacier reached out and tried to nudge her behind him with one paw.

"No," she said again, gently but firmly. "It's alright, Glacier. She won't touch you. Won't come near you at all, in fact. She can sit by me, right over here." Weiss stopped about fifteen feet away, and gestured for the faunus to join her. She hesitated, then walked over and sat down.

Reluctantly, Glacier did the same. He didn't lie all the way back down, though—he kept his head up and his eyes open, alert in case the girl tried anything. Which was patently ridiculous, she'd have to be a complete idiot to start anything right now... but Whitley did prefer it to the lifeless sprawling from earlier.

"I don't believe you've been introduced properly," Weiss said. "Glacier, Whitley, this is my teammate Blake. Blake, my brother and my father's dragon."

"I'd guessed that much," Blake said, with a wry grin.

"Oh?" It was times like these when Whitley wished he could raise only one eyebrow like his sisters did. "I wouldn't have thought she'd talked about us much. She's certainly never mentioned you," he added, before realizing that it was a bit of a stupid insult, considering yesterday had been the first time in months that she'd seen him.

Weiss groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Well," said Blake, looking deeply uncomfortable, "she did talk to us about you... disappearing."

Whitley blinked. "Oh."

Weiss glared at him. "Yes, _oh. _And I still can't believe you were _completely fine _and wandering around in the woods almost the entire time."

"That wasn't my fault," Whitley said, indignant. "Glacier didn't want to fly."

Then he froze, because blaming the dragon—even though it was absolutely true—might not be the best idea at the moment. But Glacier didn't seem to mind. He was giving Blake a chilly, narrow-eyed stare, and only flicked an ear in agreement.

"Well." Weiss pursed her lips. "We didn't know that."

Whitley sat there, completely unable to form words, because... well, it hadn't really hit him until that moment that yes, she'd probably been worried about him. Not that it mattered! He'd been kidnapped, there had probably been complete strangers worrying about him.

Weiss didn't speak, either. Just sort of sat there with a far-off look on her face until Blake gently bumped her shoulder. And that was when Whitley noticed for the first time that they were sitting right next to each other—since when did Weiss allow such _blatant _breaches of personal space? No, she'd been the second to sit down. So why...?

Blake left soon after that, since Glacier was getting restless. But it was plenty of time for Whitley to notice Weiss laughing at quite a few things she said that were, objectively, not funny. Once she was gone, he folded his arms and said, "Well? What was that about?"

"What?"

"You _like _her, don't you?"

Weiss blurted out, "Wha—no!" apparently completely on instinct. Then, "I mean, yes. I do. But I don't see how that's any of _your _business."

Whitley made a face. "I'd much rather it wasn't. But... really? Why?"

She folded her arms and glared defiantly back at him. "Because she's brave, and passionate, and kind, and..." Words apparently failed her. "Look, it's a difficult emotion to explain even if I was good at this sort of thing, which I am _not, _so would you _drop it?"_

"I'm just asking."

"Well, you don't see me asking about that boy Ragnar adopted, do you?"

Whitley's ears went bright red. "What does Oscar have to do with anything?!"

"Nothing," Weiss said airily. "Nothing at all."

He dropped the subject like a hot coal.

* * *

Somewhere above Gigas, there was a deep sigh.

"Go on," Ursan rumbled, and gave him a little push. "Go outside. I know you want to."

Gigas didn't stir. He _didn't _want to, today. Even now all sorts of new and exciting smells were coming in through the open doors, but he didn't feel like chasing after them. He wanted to lie in Ursan's lap like a lump.

Ursan rubbed his head. Gigas closed his eyes and went limp, his tail sprawling pathetically across the floor, too lethargic even to wag. "What's wrong with you, huh?" his rider wondered, and gave him little scratch under the chin with his pinky finger.

Nothing was wrong. He wasn't sick, and he could still fit through the little flap in the stable door. Except he'd had a dream, last night.

"I saw you kicking in your sleep. Nightmare?"

No. Not a nightmare. He'd been back in the camp, and there'd been a little flap in the tent, and the rope leashes had been gone. It had taken a long time to convince Flux to follow him out, but once he'd done it Justice and Harbinger and Harpy were there, and they'd all chased each other between the tents and crates and into the trees.

Justice was right. It was wrong to be happy here.

"Whatever it was, you need to get out. Go talk to one of the other dragons." Ursan nudged Gigas off his lap with his good arm. The bad one still hurt him if he used it too much.

Harpy's fault.

Gigas whined. He didn't _want _to talk to the other dragons, he wanted to talk to Flux.

"I don't give a damn if it's one of theirs. Just... don't just lay there."

He knew he was making Ursan sad, so he hauled himself out of the flap and padded across the floor of the barn. Maybe he could go find Freya—she seemed like she wouldn't mind lying down and doing nothing for a while.

* * *

"—and if you ever nervous, or uncomfortable, or _anything, _you'll tell me, right?" Pyrrha asked, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Ruby just smiled at her. "Yep!"

She sighed. "I'm overdoing it, aren't I?"

"No, no!" Ruby waved her hands frantically. "I mean, I get why you're worried and everything."

"I know. I'm sorry to ask, it's just... well, I think she's been making some progress with Ren and Nora and their dragons, but I don't like to keep asking them all the time and she's going to need to get used to other people eventually, so..."

Ruby put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm happy to help, Pyrrha. And I'm just sitting with her a few minutes so she gets used to me, right? That sounds fun!" Honestly, if it meant Pyrrha would keep smiling this much she'd be happy to do pretty much anything. Even writing a giant essay or something. Ten minutes hanging out with Harpy was something she'd have wanted to do _anyway, _so it was extra worth it!

Except, she couldn't help but notice, "Um... what about Jaune and Twiggy?"

Pyrrha winced. "They... don't get along. We're working on it."

"Sorry!" Ruby blurted in a panic. "I didn't mean—!"

"It's okay." Pyrrha sighed and nodded towards the space between two barns. "Thank you again for doing this."

Pyrrha went in first, with Ruby right behind her and Storm at the rear. It was sort of weird seeing Storm tower over another dragon. She had to bend her head down to touch her nose to Harpy's. Then the hybrid snorted and pulled back to stare at Penny. Her eyes narrowed.

"That's Penny," Ruby said. "She's, um..." How to explain androids to a dragon that had probably never seen a computer before... "She's a dragon! Kinda. But instead of hatching like you and Storm or getting born like me, she was built!"

Harpy gave Penny another wary sniff.

"Hello, friend!"

The hybrid leaped into the air, twisting in midair so that she landed in a crouch with her eyes bugging halfway out of her head. Ruby was pretty proud of herself for not laughing.

"I'm sorry, did I startle you?"

Harpy hissed.

"Penny can also help translate," Ruby said quickly—because it would kinda suck if Harpy got off on the wrong foot with her, too. "If there's anything you wanted to tell us?"

She snorted and tossed her head. Ruby didn't really need Penny to tell her, "She says no, thank you." And she was pretty sure Penny had added the thank you part.

Still, she seemed to relax a little as time went on. She even chatted a little with Storm, and listened with increasing interest when Penny talked about herself and how she came to be. Pyrrha sat down beside her with her back to the dragon's chest, and Harpy curled a foreleg around her.

They stayed longer than a few minutes. Long enough that Ruby was starting to think about excusing herself so she could find some dinner when a noise cut through their conversation like a gunshot. The cry of a dragon—but not just calling out like Ragnar had. _Scared._

Ruby was up and running in an instant. She couldn't see much of the sky from between the barns, and then she burst out into open air and craned her neck and—

She recognized them instantly. Rudder's oily scales were hard to miss, and she'd spent so many wonderful afternoons lying in the grass with Emerald and Jade.

Jade, whose saddle was empty. Who hadn't been the one to make the sound. Who didn't make a sound now, either, as she half-flew, half-plummeted towards the academy grounds. Holding something in her talons.


	88. Growth

**Hello folks! Happy Friday, and I hope everyone enjoys their winter solstice holiday season! Or at least the breaks and whatnot that usually come with it!**

* * *

**88\. Growth**

* * *

_Don't look down._

Ground.

Jade flared her wings. She hit a field at an angle, keeping Emerald tucked against her chest. Safe. Her body carved a long furrow in the grass. Rudder landed beside her and called out again.

That was good. She knew they needed help, but her voice wouldn't work.

Footsteps. Mercury.

"Jade..."

_Don't look._

She picked her head up to search for someone. Anyone. They were in Atlas, now. Atlas would have doctors who could fix Emerald.

"Jade, I'm sorry, she's—"

_Don't... look..._

She snapped at him to shut him up. His voice was all wrong, too gentle for him, and she didn't want to hear it.

Movement. Finally someone was coming. Two humans. A dragon she knew, and one she didn't. Jade tensed—but then she noticed the red hood. That was good. This one wouldn't hurt them.

Mercury was still talking. She flicked her tail at him and made him jump back, and he stopped. Rudder whined low and tried to stick his head under her wings.

"No!" she roared.

She wouldn't let anybody look. Not until there was someone close who could fix it.

"Ruby! Wait!"

But the little human ignored her friend and rushed up to them. "What happened? What's wrong?"

Mercury said... something.

_Don't listen._

It made Ruby rock back like someone had hit her. An awful hurt noise in the back of her throat. Then she was close, too close, and Jade snarled at her.

"Jade..."

"No!" She snapped and howled until they all backed away. That was good. Better.

_Don't feel._

More people were coming now. They would come, and they would fix things, and until then she had to be blind and deaf and numb—because if she couldn't feel anything, then it didn't mean anything that she couldn't feel a heartbeat.

Talking. _So much talking._ She snapped at a man in a chair nearby who looked like he might be a doctor, but the way he was looking at her made her chest hurt so badly that she wanted to hide. But she couldn't hide under her wing, not now, not when she still hadn't _found _anyone, so she howled to drown it all out.

"—second time in two days, how is this all the warning we get?!" a man shouted. Then someone else said, _"James," _and he went quiet. A murmur she couldn't, _wouldn't _hear. A muttered curse.

"Jade? Jade, can you hear me?" Mercury. Still too soft.

"I'm sorry." A choked voice. Ruby. "But you need to let go now."

Someone else. "Ruby, don't—"

_Don't look._

They didn't want her to see, either. Nobody wanted to see, so Jade would curl up tight and wait for the doctor.

A warm hand on her flank.

The only warmth she could feel that wasn't her own.

"That's it..." The hand vanished, replaced by two arms hugging tight around her neck. "That's it, just lift your wing a little.

"Nn... nno..."

"You gotta let their people work, right?" Mercury said. "They can't do that if they can't get to her."

The arms around her neck flinched.

Doctor. There must be a doctor, now. She'd heard someone say the word. So she lifted her wing and burrowed her head into the most familiar smell she could find, all machine oil and metal and old old iron, and Mercury made soft sounds and patted her nose. Rudder came up beside her and hid her under his wing, his tail twining with hers.

* * *

_How did Ozpin stand it?_

James grimaced and gripped the arms of his chair so tightly it groaned. The boy sat in front of him, his head down, in subdued silence. A gutted scroll lay on the desk between them. There was blood on some of the wires.

"Pietro? Can you get anything from this?"

"I won't know until I try."

"Don't let me keep you."

Pietro got the hint, scooped up the device, and left the room. Now there was only James, and Winter on his right, and the boy staring hollow-eyed at his own hands. He'd brought information, at least—James could feel confident in letting him stay without any restrictions. Except, of course, for making him set here now, instead of with the dragons.

But they needed to know. "What happened?"

The boy flinched. And James thought it again, the same stupid question—_How did you stand it Oz?_ Stupid because he knew the answer had always been Ragnar.

"We were snooping around." He glanced up, then down again. "She wanted something to bring back so you'd believe us."

James bore that without reacting, and wondered if he was wrong. Maybe it hadn't been Ragnar. Maybe it hadn't been _anything—_maybe Oz had felt this lost, too.

"We'll see to it that her sacrifice wasn't in vain."

The boy scoffed. "It wasn't a fucking sacrifice. There wasn't supposed to be anything _down _there."

"Down where?"

"The lab. I—_fuck."_

"Take your time," Winter cut in. "Start at the beginning."

It was as short and painless as James could make it—which wasn't very much of either. When they were done he escorted the boy back to the earth barns.

An indigo streak darted out of the entrance, and James swore aloud. They hadn't known what to do with Jade, so they'd put her up in one of the empty earth barns. He'd forgotten how close Gigas would be.

"Go back to your rider," he said, but he could tell from the dragonet's wide eyes that he'd already seen. _Shit._ "Winter, can you...?"

"I'll make sure he stays there until she settles."

"Thank you."

He and Mercury aimed for the southernmost barn—just in time to hear a long groan and the crack of splintering wood. James broke into a run.

Inside, a small crowd was already forming around the entrance to Jade's temporary stall. Ruby and Pyrrha, Harpy and Storm, a handful of their teammates... and Pietro. It wasn't clear what had made her tear down one wall of the stall, but she'd already subsided into a corner. Rudder whined and nudged her with his nose. And, a little off to the side, sitting stiff and awkward, was Justice.

_Oh, hell. _James looked around, but Ilia wasn't there. So he grabbed Blake's shoulder and murmured, "Can you get him out of here?"

"Don't."

He blinked. Turned towards Mercury. "What?"

"They're siblings."

"...Ah."

He came in closer. Ruby was kneeling by Jade's head, murmuring soothing nonsense, while Yang rubbed her back. Tempest watched over them, with one wing draped over the younger dragon and her tail curled around Ruby. No imminent crises that he could see. Except then he glanced at Pietro, who was sitting a respectful distance away, talking rapidly and quietly to Storm.

No. To Penny.

"—very sorry, my dear."

"I'm happy to help!"

Storm whined.

James strode over. "What's going on? I thought you were working on the device they brought back."

"I am." Pietro fiddled with something on the back of Penny's chassis and exposed a panel of wires. He twined one around a cord leading to his own scroll, and started flicking through it. "There's another version of Penny on it. Or rather..." He glanced up and winced. "Well. I expect it was a clone at one point."

Storm made another distressed noise. Penny didn't react, as far as James could see, except for the light that went red.

"It's... well, it's optimized quite well for combat and just about useless for anything else. Incapable of growing past its current parameters. Not alive the way Penny is."

"That's a relief. Makes destroying the devices a lot simpler."

Storm yipped indignantly.

Pietro made a face. "It's _barbaric, _is what it is. But never mind. Penny has a basic awareness of her body, which means that this... _thing _might contain some information about the physical devices as well. Weak points, perhaps."

James surged forward. "Where?"

A sheepish cough. "Well, that's the problem. I... don't quite remember where I put it. And I'm not certain this stripped down version even _has _it."

"You don't remember where you put it." James pinched the bridge of his nose. _"Pietro."_

"Why don't _you _try finding a specific function in all this?" Pietro gestured at the display on his scroll—a dizzying green-and-black starscape with, as far as James could see, no organization at all. "And don't tell me that's my own fault, the whole point of this coding language is to allow the program to evolve. I might as well be poking around in a human brain to find the parts that handle balance."

Storm whimpered. Pietro winced and patted her neck. "Without any of the... ah, mess and risk the comparison might imply. I'm only looking, my dear, I won't do any harm."

"Would it help if I shut down non-emergency functions for a few minutes?" Penny asked.

"No need for that," Pietro said hastily. James wasn't sure he agreed. "Just keep focusing and it should light up for me. If it takes a few hours and a bit of a stiff neck, that's a small price to pay."

"It wouldn't be difficult..."

He smiled and rested a hand on her chassis. "Wouldn't it? Storm doesn't seem to agree."

An apologetic whine, which he shushed. "You've done nothing wrong. Far from it. And what are you still doing here?" He flapped a hand at James. "Go. Shoo. This won't go any faster with you looking over my shoulder."

"Pietro... there's one other thing you need to know."

"Hmm?" He was already half-absorbed in looking at the code.

"I spoke to Mercury about what happened. He says the girl was killed by young hybrids... in a lab run by Doctor Watts."

Pietro froze. "Arthur..."

* * *

The terminal was dark and dead. Wires tumbled from the edge of the table, snapped and frayed, dangling broken connectors. Blood and scorch marks smeared the floor, and the talons of the gathered hatchlings.

Doctor Watts heaved a sigh. He supposed it could have been worse—if he hadn't kept Glory and the other pit dragons close at hand... ah. Right. He grimaced. It would have been worth the loss of one of them to keep the two brats from spreading what they knew, but they'd gone and gotten... away...

He looked down. One of the hybrids was dead, too, facedown in a pool of its own poison. Watts frowned and knelt—gingerly, to avoid touching it. There was a silver footprint on the concrete. "Interesting."

A good sign... but no. He couldn't count on the poison killing both of them, and even if it did, their dragons were still up and moving. They had one of his prototypes. The word would spread.

Watts clicked his fingers. The hybrids lined up, stepping carefully around the streaks of poison on the floor. He prepared the first needle mechanically, hardly paying attention, and the oldest living hybrid padded up to him, presenting its foreleg.

There wasn't much to the process. He simply injected same solution of Dust that had gone into the creature's egg, if a little less potent. A happy accident that had resulted from an attempt to coax some sort of elemental ability out of a dragonet that had been born with a brood dragon's guileless silver eyes and no sign of any powers. It hadn't worked as intended... but the creature had nearly doubled in size in just two days.

He smiled. This particular success was an excellent reminder of the benefits of using multiple sources of information. Playing the board, so to speak. It was the third hybrid to survive past its first day of life, and the first to last more than a week. Already too big to leave the room, but he could easily bring one of the pit dragons over to clear the way. Could, except...

Watts clucked critically, lifting the creature's wings. They were almost laughably small, dwarfed by the jagged bony plates of armor that covered its body. It _should _be big enough to carry him... but he would count himself lucky if it could keep itself in the air long enough for them to take their leave. If it couldn't, he'd have to leave it behind.

A flick of his hand. _Next. _On came the second oldest, a fire and lightning hybrid with slitted pupils. Hybrid Nineteen. Also big enough to carry him, and its wings were perfectly proportional to its body. But its scales were searing hot, and stayed that way no matter how he fiddled with its code. Not rideable.

His scroll chirped from its place in the back corner of the lab. Too risky to keep it above ground, after all—Cinder might do something drastic if she saw it go off. She just wouldn't appreciate the lengths he went to in order to prevent the Council from tracing it. Or the people he used it to contact.

"Doctor Watts," he said, when he'd picked up the scroll. Even as he talked he prepped the next injection. This one needed a particular needle, made of tungsten so it wouldn't melt, and thick leather gloves.

"Arthur." His lip curled. _Doctor Watts, _thank you very much... "How soon will you be ready to leave."

Watts sized up the row of hatchlings. One was nearly big enough, but had a hacking cough that made him think it might not last the next few days. Another was quite small, but its wings were already bigger than most of the others'. Perhaps in a pinch... "Another week or two, ideally. Days, if it's urgent." Which it was—he doubted he could stall Cinder for much longer. She was understandably eager to move on now that the students had brought their location to Ironwood.

_"If it's urgent," _the man on the scroll seethed. "Only if you consider a full-scale rebellion _urgent."_

Ah, Pepon. Always so dramatic. "I'm afraid I can't speed things up any more than that."

"We can send you transport—"

"Not an option, unfortunately."

"We need you _here. _Now! There isn't time for your... whatever it is that you're doing! They'll be on our doorstep by then, and we can't hold them all off with rifles!"

Watts rolled his eyes. "So _distract them."_

"Arthur—!" He hung up. _Honestly, _if it weren't so convenient he might start to be irritated by other people demanding that he solve their problems.

He was about to climb back up the stairs when a flash of red caught his attention. One of the indicator lights on the incubators had lit up. It was the last egg—he'd been forced to stop adding Dust to new ones, since the very youngest hatchlings would be unable to fly. Even this way, a few of them would have to be left behind or carried by the others.

Hmm. He'd need to go through them and decide which ones to keep, later. Certainly not the water and gravity hybrid that had just died, but its formula would be important to keep in mind. They were quite potent, even if they didn't seem to live very long.

Watts approached the incubator. There was still no sign of life he could detect, but that light meant that the dragons could hear or smell something. So he bustled about in the back of the room, listening with half an ear as the taps and cracks of a new hatching began.

A squeal, and a tiny thump. Watts scowled over his shoulder. It had somehow managed to tip itself off the edge of the incubator and land on the floor. He watched, curious to see how his newest program would work. The other dragonets approached their newest member, and one dragged over a box of jerky.

The dragonet made a small hiccuping sound, and something thick and molten oozed from the corners of its mouth. Ah—yes, that would be the earth and fire hybrid. Most of the dragons backed off. Hybrid Nineteen licked away what was left of the egg goo, which had already started to hiss and steam on contact with the little creature. It squeaked and licked back, rubbing its head affectionately against the older dragon and leaving little streaks of magma.

Another one that couldn't control its powers very well. Watts snapped his fingers impatiently, and Hybrid Nineteen grabbed it by the scruff. It squeaked and flailed, flapping its wings in confusion and sending droplets of molten stone flying everywhere.

Hybrid Nineteen stopped just in front of Watts, holding the dragonet firmly in its teeth as it struggled. He finished prepping the device and bent down to attach it, and was glad once again that he'd finally patched the melting problem. Bad enough to lose Crucible that way, and worse that the brute seemed to remember the trick. But he'd had time to refine the design, now, and it wouldn't be so easy to break them.

That didn't mean the blasted thing was easy to put on. "Hold it still," he said, but there was only one of Hybrid Nineteen. He glanced around, snapped at a wind and water hybrid. A stable combination, but not a particularly noteworthy one. Easy to replicate. It held down the new dragonet by the tail while Hybrid Nineteen gripped its head and neck, and Watts fitted on the device without any more difficulty.

It stopped moving. The wind and water hybrid limped away on burned paws.

* * *

The cell was clean, well-lit, and comfortable. A soft bed, a desk and chair, a shelf of books to pass the time. There was even a small terminal to play music or games on, though it couldn't connect to the network.

May ignored all of it, and curled up with a blanket underneath the desk. The only time she moved was to force herself to eat, or to check the time on the terminal, counting down the minutes until noon. Then she would be escorted to another room, down the hall. She could throw her arms around Flurry's neck and whisper false reassurances in his ear while the Council soldiers watched.

Routine was law, here. Every meal arrived at the same time. The lights went off at ten o'clock sharp, and came on again at six. And always, _always, _time dragged by like molasses.

Until she heard footsteps in the corridor outside at eight twenty-four in the morning. May sat bolt upright, uncurling herself enough to peer out through the window of her door. She recognized the suited man instantly—he was one of Vale's Councilmen.

The rush of dread almost made her throw up. She staggered back, and then he was at the door and the soldiers outside were opening it. So she backed away some more, like a caged rat, because she was too frazzled with adrenaline to realize that a Councilor wouldn't have come here in person to tell her they were going to kill Flurry.

"Please don't hurt him," she blurted, the instant the man crossed the threshold. "It was my fault, he didn't know, and I—I could tell him to listen to someone else, and he could fight Grimm, he can fly just fine without me..."

She trailed off into a quiet despair—she might as well be talking to a wall, for all the good it would do Flurry. Then the man smiled, and she had to squash the urge to punch him.

"Why, I have no intention of harming your dragon. I'm here because I've heard your story—a tragedy, really, but hardly his fault." And there it was, a sharp glittering in his eyes. "I'd like you to tell that story, May Zedong."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Again? Why? You said they already told you."

"Not to _me. _But I think some people deserve to know the truth. General Ironwood, for instance."

May hugged her arms around herself, and hoped that would be enough to keep her from caving in. She was so _tired..._

"I'll do it," she said dully.

"Excellent." A pat on the shoulder that made her skin crawl. "We'll take good care of Flurry while you're gone."


	89. The Replacement

**Happy Holidays! This chapter, Harpy is almost as allergic to opening up as she is to water.**

* * *

**89\. The Re****placement**

* * *

The worst things in the world were silence and stillness, and they were everywhere now.

Flux chewed on her leash. Not to escape—there was nowhere for her to go, because she didn't know where Gigas was and anyway she was too small and weak and scared to help him. So she chewed and chewed and chewed because it was distracting, and because she didn't want to remember the fight. Her first flight, diving down at the intruders' heads, gigantic enemy dragons in every direction...

Gigas.

She whined and rolled onto her side, shivering with the empty space in their tent. Brand's rider was still in the camp, and he wasn't supposed to see her, so she had to stay inside. She liked it inside. Gigas was always the one who wanted to go into the camp, to smell and taste and touch everything there was... but it was so empty without him.

Her whole body crawled with jitters. Each one came with sparks that popped and stung her. And every time her heart would beat faster, until she finally hid her head under her wing and shut her eyes and tried to squeeze herself still.

She didn't mean to make the noise. It was somewhere between a whine and a howl, and she smothered it as soon as it started, and what if the human had heard and she'd ruined everything and—

The tent flap parted, and Sienna strode inside. "What is it?" she demanded, crouching down. Flux whimpered and buried her head under her rider's arm. Sparks jumped, and they both flinched.

"I'm sorry," Sienna murmured, "but you need to stay quiet while he's here."

Flux bobbed her head. Her rider scratched her behind the ears, and the horrible crawling feeling eased. She relaxed, her body trembling only a little, and buried her head under her arm.

But then Sienna had work to do, and Flux was alone again. And she gnawed on the rope some more, until finally it was down to a few thin stands. She stared at it. Her mind raced.

Before she could think twice, she used her talons to snap it. Then she crawled over to the corner of the tent, the place where the big one had come through. Someone had stitched it up. In the moment that she clawed it open again, it was almost like her brother was there with her—he'd always wanted to do this, but she'd been too scared and now—

She tried not to think about where he was now.

Flux found Harbinger in his enclosure, lying on his side half-submerged in mud.

"Hey," she whispered.

He didn't move.

She hopped over the fence and approached him. "Hey!"

One ear flicked.

She poked him with her tail and let sparks fly. He leaped to his feet with an indignant yelp. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Someone will see you!"

"They're all asleep."

_"I _was trying to sleep."

Flux huffed. "You sleep all the time, now. You're acting like Brand." She didn't understand it—even the thought of spending that much time lying around doing nothing made her itch.

"I'm tired," he said, and put his head down on his paws.

She sat next to him, her tail twitching back and forth. The moon was out, and shining brittle-bright—she'd never seen it so clear before, only the light once or twice on cloudy nights. Gigas would have loved it.

"Harbinger?"

"What?"

"We can save them, right? When we're bigger and better at fighting, and when Sienna and the others make more hybrids?"

He heaved a sigh. "I don't know."

She flicked him with her tail. He grumbled and shoved her with one of his huge shovel paws, which only got him shocked again.

"We'll do it," she said, half to herself. "We'll get Gigas, and Justice, and the big one, and then we can all—"

"We'll get Gigas," Harbinger said. "But Ilia's a traitor, remember? We can't bring Justice back here."

"What about the big one? She fights Grimm all the time, I bet she could—!"

"No!" Harbinger's ears flattened in alarm. "No, don't do that. You have to stay away from her."

"But..."

"She's dangerous." He looked away from her and hunched his shoulders. "She... she doesn't like Sienna."

Flux stared at him. How could anyone not like Sienna?

"Don't go looking for her. With any luck she got lost in the woods and we won't see her again."

"Oh." She sat there a moment, until the jitters started up again. "Can we play for a bit?"

"...Not right now," Harbinger said, very quietly. "I'm tired."

* * *

Penny was with Pietro. She was with Pietro so that he could build her a body of her own. He was building her a body of her own because—

Storm shook her head violently. The thought didn't go away.

Ruby was with Jade. She was with Jade because Jade had just lost her rider, and she'd asked Storm if she'd wanted to come with her, and Storm had said no because—

Because she didn't want to hate Jade. Especially not right now. But she would if she went, and she sort of did even though she hadn't gone, because Ruby was with her and she _knew _that didn't mean anything. She knew Ruby wouldn't leave her behind. Except...

Except that she couldn't fly.

Storm snorted in frustration and stalked off across the grounds. This was stupid. She wasn't some little hatchling crying at a closed door just because her rider wanted to go into town for a few hours.

Even if she sometimes wished she was.

* * *

Jaune didn't mean to stare. It was just that he'd been sitting outside with Twiggy, and he'd gotten up to go to the bathroom, and he'd almost stumbled right into Harpy. So he'd hung back, because he didn't really feel like dealing with her right then, and Pyrrha was there too, and... well...

Harpy had taken to affection like a shark to water. She curled up around Pyrrha, her tail twitching in lazy contentment, purring and licking her face. Pyrrha moved with her, a strange sort of up and down half-nod, until she eventually nudged her away. "Okay, okay!" she said, laughing. "I'm not going anywhere, you know." The dragon whimpered and nuzzled into her side.

Sometimes it was hard not to resent Harpy. After all, she'd clawed up Pyrrha's back, and attacked them, and started fights with Twiggy. But as he stood there, half-hidden in the shadow of a building, he had love her. He had to love anything that could make Pyrrha smile like that. Hell, he'd have been glad to see her adopt _Crucible, _if it made her this happy.

Still. It kinda sucked to miss her when she was twenty feet away.

As if she'd heard the thought, Pyrrha glanced up. Jaune froze. He felt a bit like he'd been caught, which was stupid—and for a second he worried that she might be angry with him, which was way stupider. But when she caught his eye, she only smiled.

_"Later," _she mouthed, and pointed at the spot where she was sitting.

And, well, that was all she had to say—Jaune was already determined to wait there all night if he had to.

He didn't, though. Pyrrha came back a little bit past midnight, her hair a tangled mess and her eyes bright and shining. There was nothing to do but kiss her, and stand like that, wishing the world would just stop for a second...

Twiggy nudged them with her nose. Jaune pulled away and pouted at her. "Five more minutes?"

She snorted, disgruntled, and pulled her ears back. "Nno!"

Jaune sighed and settled in against her side, one arm around Pyrrha, and tried to concentrate on the fact that Twiggy hadn't gotten to see much of her either, lately. They definitely needed to do something about that. Soon. But for now...

He sighed and leaned his head against hers. "I missed you," he said—even though it was dumb, even though she'd been right there the whole time.

"I missed you too."

"How is everything? With Harpy, I mean."

A perfect, wonderful smile spread across her face, despite her chapped lips and split knuckles. "It means a lot. To be trusted like that."

...Yeah, Harpy could have one of his kidneys, at this point. Not that she'd need it, being a dragon and all, but she could totally have one.

Jaune squeezed Pyrrha's shoulder. "I was kinda curious..."

"Hm?"

"You were moving your head. Uh, before, when she was—"

"Oh!" Pyrrha laughed again. "Oh, that. Her tongue is quite rough, like a cat's, and... well, it hurts if I don't move with it."

Jaune blinked. "Huh. I didn't think about that."

"It can be challenging," she admitted. "I've been going to our Professors for advice, but there's really only so much they can tell me."

"It must have been like this for every dragon," he mused. "I mean, there had to be a first one, right? And no one would've known what they were doing."

"Imagine the first fire riders."

Jaune grinned. "I bet they were never bored."

It felt impossibly good just to talk again. The cloud of grief wasn't gone, not completely, but it felt like sunlight had finally broken through. They could finally be alone together, with no crisis situations, no hovering dragons—well. One hovering dragon. But Twiggy seemed content to lie there with her head in their laps, her eyes half-closed.

If he could have frozen this moment and bottled it... but he couldn't, so he kissed her again instead.

* * *

Harpy jolted awake with the phantom stink of the evil tent lingering in her nostrils. She twisted onto her side, her head lifting up, seeking out a better scent—_leather and sweat and a hint of smoke—_but found only a trace of it.

She was on her feet in an instant. Sniffing. Pyrrha's trail was easy to follow, and within minutes she'd found her. Sitting with the human and his dragon.

It had been along time since she'd felt it—the black mood that brought monsters to her den. Before she could think she was sprinting full-tilt across the lawn, and she snatched Pyrrha away and under her wing. The earth dragon reared up, showing off her size, and roared.

"Wait!" the boy blurted, and Harpy bared her teeth.

Twiggy jumped in front of him, snarling, "No!"

"Mine!" Harpy's ears pinned back. She wasn't going to lose the one who asked.

The earth dragon lunged at her. But Harpy slithered backwards out of reach, and pulled moisture from the air until the scales on her outstretched paw cracked.

"Twiggy, no!" the human boy shouted.

"She's _his _human, not yours!" Twiggy pounced. Harpy made to slide out of the way, but she'd forgotten about Pyrrha in the heat of the moment. The extra weight made her clumsy. In an instant she was on the ground. She thrashed and snarled and flexed her powers, but the sheer weight of the older dragon kept her pinned.

That was one of the first things she'd learned in the woods—never let them hold you down. So she imagined it was an Ursa bearing down on her as she struggled. She let claws dig into her shoulder, wrenched at her tail where it was stuck under Twiggy's foot, let herself hurt as much as she needed to as long as she got _away. _And then she was loose, and she spun around, and she tensed herself up to bite—

Pyrrha got in the way. She yelped and pulled up short, and Twiggy tripped over herself trying to stop herself halfway through her charge. "Sit," she said, her voice sharp. "Both of you."

Harpy nearly snarled at the command—but then Twiggy sat, and she sensed something in Pyrrha that made her do the same. Like a fraying rope about to snap.

"We can't keep doing this." Pyrrha hugged both arms around herself, her hands clenched tight. "So we're going to deal with it. Right now."

* * *

Twiggy sat with Jaune beside her, partly covered by her wing. Watching Harpy, who had twined her tail around her legs. Pyrrha was with her. Still standing, still with her arms folded.

"Well?" The little wobble in her voice made Twiggy want to crawl away and hide.

"Sssorry," she mumbled.

Jaune patted her neck. "It's okay. We just want to know what's going on."

Twiggy looked at Harpy. Harpy stared pointedly off to one side, her ears flat against her skull.

Pyrrha sighed. "Twiggy? Can you go first?"

She didn't _want _to go at all... but she shuffled her wings and said, "Hurt." And when Pyrrha didn't seem to understand, she gently nudged her shoulder with her nose—the scratches that still hadn't completely stopped bleeding the last time she'd seen them.

"...Oh." Pyrrha patted her nose. "Is that it? Twiggy, I really am fine. That was just a misunderstanding."

Twiggy narrowed her eyes. "Nno."

"I promise, it's alright. She was just scared." Harpy grumbled a little at that.

Pyrrha beckoned the hybrid over and rubbed her neck. "I think that means it's your turn. What was all that about, just now?"

Wordlessly, Harpy wound her tail around Pyrrha and buried her under her wings. Twiggy rose into a crouch, growling, but stopped when Jaune put a hand on her chest.

"Listen—" Pyrrha wriggled free. "Harpy, I want to spend time with you too. But this—this has to be better, okay? Can you _please _try? For me?"

Harpy snorted again, this time in frustration. She lay down and shut her eyes, and for a second Twiggy thought she'd given up completely—but then she mimed waking up and looking around. Her tail lashed back and forth.

Pyrrha winced. "Oh. I—you're right, I shouldn't have left without telling you. I'm sorry."

Twiggy made an indignant noise, but stopped when Jaune shot her a pleading look.

_"But," _Pyrrha added, tapping Harpy lightly under the chin so that she met her eyes, "I need to see my teammates more than just in passing. They're important to me. Just like Gigas and Justice are to you."

Harpy huffed and flicked her tail.

Pyrrha's expression softened. "They _are. _I can tell."

Jaune let out a long, relieved sigh. "Okay. Is that better, girl?"

Twiggy whined.

"Hey." He hugged her around the neck. "I know it's a lot, but... it makes her happy, right?"

_But..._

"Nn..." She choked on what she was trying to say. It barely made sense to her, it was so jumbled up in itself, and trying to say it so that they'd understand was just impossible. So she glared at Harpy and said, "I'm supposed to protect her."

Harpy stared back. Blinked.

"She's my brother Titan's human, and he's gone, and that means I have to keep her safe."

"I protect," Harpy said, her neck arching so that she could look down at Pyrrha. "You protect. Better?"

It should have been.

It wasn't.

Harpy was dangerous. She'd scratched Pyrrha. She'd also helped them in the fight... but Twiggy had to be the one to protect her. Had to make it better.

The hybrid cocked her head. _"Your _human?" She narrowed her eyes and stared pointedly at Jaune. "Have one. Two?"

"No!" Twiggy blurted. Then, "Nno..."

"Hey." Jaune pressed his forehead against her cheek. "What is it?"

"Nn... need Rruh ssafe." Twiggy bumped her head against his chest, felt another pang for the days when she could fit in his arms. "Tann... want..."

Silence. Twiggy squeezed her eyes shut, because she didn't want to see their faces. "Tann... mme. Nno fly..."

Jaune's hands stilled where they'd been scratching under her chin. Something lurched painfully inside her, and she keened like a hatchling into his chest.

"Oh..." Pyrrha said, into the horribly quiet. "Oh, Twiggy, _no..."_

Then she threw her arms around her, and Jaune hugged her head, and Harpy just stood there as still as a statue. "None of that was your fault," her rider murmured.

Pyrrha didn't say anything. She tried several times, but all that came out were little choked noises. Then, finally, she managed, "I don't—_never—"_

Harpy hid behind one of her wings.

They stayed that way a long time, with Jaune whispering reassurances to Twiggy and Pyrrha both. Then, finally, Pyrrha could speak again. "Don't _ever _think that was your fault."

Twiggy whined.

"Promise me. Promise you won't ever think that. Not—not when those _bastards _are still out there, saying you both deserved to die because of how you were born."

Helplessly, Twiggy nodded.

"Good." Pyrrha wiped at her eyes. Her shoulders were still shaking. Then a shadow unfolded itself from behind her, and Harpy nuzzled into her side. She managed a wobbly smile. "Thank you."

Twiggy wished there was someplace to hide. She'd forgotten Harpy was there, and she'd said _all that, _and...

Harpy kept her eyes fixed on something off in the distance, but her ears were flat and her tail twitched anxiously. "Council... killers."

"...Yes."

"Fang, too."

It took a moment for Twiggy to realize she wasn't talking about Yang's Fang, but the White Fang. Then her ears drooped. "We know. We saw their lab."

Harpy's tail stopped moving. All of her stopped moving, but she kept one foreleg around Pyrrha's shoulders. "Saw," she agreed. "Ran."

There was nothing Twiggy could say to that, so she butted her head against Harpy's shoulder instead. The hybrid reared back—but she didn't look angry, only startled. Like no one had ever done that to her before.

"Sorrry," Twiggy said again. To Pyrrha, and to Harpy.

And, after a long moment, Harpy risked a quick glance at her before looking away again.

"...Sorry."


	90. Priorities in Order

**So, the holidays are exhausting and I am terrible at parties. Who wants some old man Ragnar?**

* * *

**90\. Priorities in Order**

* * *

Atlas was one of the wonders of the world—people had traveled across Remnant just to see the view of it from above. A view like the one May was currently ignoring.

There was a man three rows back with a purple coat. And it wasn't him. It wasn't. The one who'd attacked her had yellow eyes, or had they been purple? But they weren't blue. She knew that, but she still felt sick with fear, and other things. She pressed a hand over her face, willing herself to keep it together. All she had to do was act normal for a few more hours, and then...

Well. It didn't really matter what happened after that.

"Miss?"

She jumped, cringing back against the window when the man in purple leaned out over the back of her neighbor's seat. Her neighbor's _empty _seat. Stupid, _stupid, _how could she have let him get so—"

"The ship's docked."

May blinked. Most of the airbus was empty. The sudden absence made her skin crawl, but the man only frowned and said, "Are you alright?"

"Fine." She wanted to get up, but he was in the way. He seemed to notice her discomfort, though, and winced.

"Right. Sorry." Then he turned away, and she felt a flash of guilt. He had a wolf's tail—not the same man at all.

"Wake up," she snarled, scrubbing viciously at her eyes with the back of her hand. Tugging her beanie further down over her face, she left the airbus.

The streets of Atlas were crowded, and even this early in the autumn the streets were filled with snow that had turned to slush under hundreds of passing feet. Her sneakers weren't waterproof. May shrugged it off, struggling through the press and trying not to flinch every time someone bumped into her. At least no one else bothered to stop and ask if she was okay.

Finally, she got free of the crowd and turned down what she thought was the right street—and stopped dead. There was a cordon across the road, and two Council soldiers with rifles. Her right index finger itched.

"Hey!" the one on the left called out. She put a hand on her gun. "No entrance, kid."

May almost retched. "Please! I have to go inside, I—" But she couldn't tell them. Couldn't tell _anyone._ That was the one thing they'd told her to keep secret. "My friend is in there, I just want to see him."

"No entrance." The guard on the right jerked his head towards the street behind her. "Shoo."

She had no choice except to leave. So she walked around the perimeter of the school, searching desperately for an entrance that was left unblocked... and found a sheer wall with one bored guard. He was looking the other way.

What if she screwed it up? If she failed they wouldn't send Flurry to a Broodery—if she did this _right _they still might not send him to a Broodery. She couldn't just...

But she didn't get choices anymore. So with desperate animal strength she launched herself at the wall, and she was halfway up before the guard had finished whirling around. "Stop!" he shouted, and went for his gun, but a strap caught and she was up on the wall and—

A crack. A thud. She landed on her side and curled in a miserable ball, her ears ringing, her hands pressed against her ears to convince herself that they weren't holding a rifle. Bruised from the fall, but otherwise unhurt.

May forced herself to her feet. He'd probably tell someone. The guards might try to come onto the grounds, and they wouldn't miss a second time. She couldn't fuck this up.

She walked slowly, stiffly, stumbling on her numb feet. Feeling eerily calm now she was here. Ironwood might lock her up, or worse—but she was so tired. She just wanted it over.

* * *

Something was wrong with Glacier.

Ragnar had to wait until he wasn't with Specter or Steele to bring it up—he wasn't sure if the older dragon would be comfortable talking in front of them, especially since he'd only just met Specter. Better to be sure.

Tempest caught on to what he was doing. She helped scout out the other two ice dragons, and came to him one afternoon when Steele and Winter were busy with James, and Specter and Weiss were with Pit and Blake. From there...

Well, blunt was usually best, with Glacier.

"Let's talk," Ragnar said. Glacier picked his head up from where he had coiled himself up in a forgotten corner of Atlas' campus. Whitley stared out from between his paws.

"Are we leaving?" he asked hopefully.

"I don't think so..." said Oscar.

Ragnar huffed. "Nno."

"Why... talk?" Glacier rumbled, staring dully at them with half-lidded eyes.

"Because you need to," Tempest said. She prodded him to his feet with her nose and then tossed her head towards the open fields. "We should stay on campus, but we can go somewhere no one will listen in. Okay?"

Glacier sighed and plodded after them.

Ragnar couldn't help purring in contentment at the chance to stretch his wings. It was a short flight, more of a hop and a glide really, but the long wait for his injuries to heal had made it new in a way it hadn't been since he'd first carried—

He flinched. Oscar rubbed his shoulder soothingly.

The three of them stopped in a small stand of trees, near the edge of the Dragonry. Glacier sat on his haunches, fussing at Whitley until his hair stood up in every direction.

"Are you okay?" asked Tempest.

"Yes. Found small ones."

Ragnar glanced at Tempest, then sighed. "We know, and we're glad. It's just that you seem... upset."

"No." Glacier folded his ears back. "Have small ones. Small ones... make better." His tail curled in on itself as he spoke.

Ragnar butted his head against the ice dragon's side. "That isn't how it works, Glacier. I'm sorry."

Tempest hummed agreement. "They make it better. I think someday you'll be really happy. But it takes a long time to heal, and it never stops hurting."

Glacier hunched up his wings and sulked. "Different."

His foreleg squeezed Whitley against his chest. The boy squirmed and wriggled and said, "Will _somebody _tell me what we're even doing—"

A gunshot.

Ragnar swept Oscar under his belly, where he'd be safe, and twisted to look at Tempest. "Can you—?"

She bobbed her head. "I'll warn them."

He loped into the woods, careful to keep Oscar behind him, with Glacier following them. Tense. Ready for the Council soldiers to jump out of the shadows...

But they didn't. Instead the dragons burst out of the stand of trees to find a little human, unarmed, with a hat pulled down over one eye. She stared at them. Her whole body started to shake. Then, before Ragnar could even try to help steady her, she fell to her knees.

"You..." she whispered.

Ragnar came in close, sniffing for injuries. She seemed unhurt, though her feet were soaked and she was shivering all over. Tears welled up in the eye that wasn't hidden under her hat. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay!" Oscar came out from behind Ragnar and smiled. "You're safe here. We'll get you back to the Dragonry, and..."

But she wasn't listening. It was as if Oscar and Glacier and Whitley didn't even exist—only Ragnar.

"I did it." She fell forward, caught herself on her hands. "I killed him."

* * *

Oscar didn't even dare breathe as the girl on the ground wrapped her arms around her head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I didn't want to, but she called me and she knew about Flurry and I just... I didn't know what else to do."

Ragnar was as still as if he'd been carved from stone. She slumped, like she'd just laid down an enormous weight, and didn't even flinch when he started to growl. Oscar had never heard the old earth dragon make a noise like that—he'd never heard _anything _make a noise like that.

Muscles coiled up in Ragnar's legs. Oscar tried to jump in front of him, but Whitley grabbed his arm and stopped him cold. The dragon pounced—and grabbed the girl in his foreclaws, unharmed. Then he took off and flew towards the CCT tower.

Oscar gaped. He might have stood there for a long time if Whitley hadn't shaken his arm and said, "Come on!"

He balked a bit at the idea of getting _that _close to Glacier. The ice dragon didn't seem fond of the idea either, and glared at him in narrow-eyed suspicion.

"Please?" Whitley said. "He's safe. You know him."

Grumbling a little under his breath, Glacier settled Whitley on his back. Then, gingerly, like he was picking up a spider, he dropped Oscar just behind him. He landed with a long, sharp spine jutting out a few inches to either side of his legs.

"Um..."

"You get used to it," Whitley said dismissively. "But you might want to hold on."

Oscar hesitated—which turned out to be a terrible idea. Glacier was off in a heartbeat, and the sudden shift in movement made him cut his arm on one of the spines. He hissed in a breath. Whitley grabbed his injured hand and placed it on his shoulder.

He'd sort of meant to leave it there, but it turned out that midair turbulence was a lot more nerve-wracking on a dragon covered in slippery scales and long spines, who seemed to forget he had riders every time he made a sharp turn. So he wrapped both arms around Whitley's shoulders and mostly focused on not falling off and not choking him.

When they landed on the lawn beside Ragnar, Ironwood was already running out to meet them. Whitley slid off Glacier's back easily, but when Oscar didn't immediately follow—why did there have to be spines on his _sides, _too?!—the ice dragon shook himself like a wet dog. He landed on his face in the grass, groaning.

The girl was on the ground, too, huddled in a ball. Her eyes were wide and still shining with tears.

"Gain," Ragnar demanded.

More people were coming out, now. Surrounding them. Oscar felt a pang of sympathy and stepped forward. "She, um..." Then he froze. It was hard to say it out loud, even though it had nothing to do with him. Even if he was just translating. "She says she killed Ozpin."

"Something about a flurry?" added Whitley. "It wasn't very clear."

"Flurry," she whispered. "My dragon."

Ironwood put a hand to his forehead. "All of you, _leave."_ Then, when people started to back away, "Not you. And you..."

He kept some of the teachers, and Pietro, and Winter. That meant that Weiss stayed too, and the other Beacon students with her. He didn't send them away, but instead knelt in front of the girl.

"What's your name?"

"May. May Zedong."

"Okay." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Start at the beginning."

Oscar got the gist of the story, but he didn't pay much attention to it—he was too busy hugging Ragnar around the neck, soothing him as best as he could. The great earth dragon nudged him with his nose. A shaky breath ruffled his hair.

"You're sure." Ironwood stood up, his hands clenched into fists. "This was Cinder, not the Council?"

"Yeah. I r-recognized her at Shade."

"And Flurry. Where is he now."

May curled her knees against her chest and shook her head. "G-gone."

"You're lying to me."

She looked up, then, suddenly fierce. "I'm not."

Ironwood sighed. "Winter? Can you put her in the stall next to Gigas and the Lieutenant? I don't think we're going to have much luck with this right now."

"Sir?"

He grimaced. "If Flurry isn't here, and he isn't dead, someone else has him. She's not going to talk to us."

* * *

May didn't struggle when Winter brought her into the stall. She just stood there, her head hanging, her eyes on the floor.

It was... difficult to watch.

"You'll be safe, here," Winter said stiffly. She didn't think Ragnar would hurt her—he'd understood enough of what she'd said to know there had been someone else forcing her hand—but... better to be careful.

May didn't seem to have heard her.

Winter left the stall—unlocked, for now, but Steele would keep guard outside until they could rig something. Then she made her way back to the lawn outside Atlas tower, where the General had gathered everyone. Pietro was at his right, holding the disemboweled scroll a rider had died to bring to them.

"We need to change targets," he said, his voice magnified by some device she couldn't see. "I've been looking at these blueprints, and it's... he's stripped them down. Gotten rid of what _should _be useful functions, even for such a twisted purpose. There wouldn't be any point, unless he needs to make a lot of them very quickly."

Specter shivered and curled a little tighter around Weiss. Winter came over to them, and surprised herself by patting his side.

General Ironwood nodded to Pietro, then turned to face the crowd. "I know we have a common enemy with Cinder Fall. But this?" He gestured towards the device in Pietro's hands. "Attacking our students? _Murdering _Ozpin? It's too far. And if she really is planning to mass-produce these _things,_ I think our responsibility is clear. I won't force any of you to join this fight—but I'll be glad for anyone who chooses to help us make sure this technology is destroyed."

He faltered a little, then—this was another thing Ozpin had always done, the big speeches, that the General had never felt totally comfortable with. Winter gave him a firm nod, from the crowd, and he nodded back. "Yes. Well. I'll send your professors around, let one of them know if you want to take part."

With that, General Ironwood retreated back into the tower. Winter was about to follow him when Weiss grabbed her hand. "Um... can you stay for a moment? I might have an idea."

So she followed her sister off to the side, where the rest of the Beacon students, Glacier, and Ragnar were all gathered. "Here's the thing," she said, fiddling a little with the end of her ponytail. "We know Cinder's done terrible things—but we still don't have much _proof."_

"But what about—!" Ruby protested.

"I don't mean proof that _we _can't work with her anymore," Weiss said hurriedly. "I mean that she still has plenty of students on her side with dragons the Council would cull if they had the chance. They're not going to just take our word for it that she's done all of this, not if they think she's their only hope of protecting their partners. We need to find proof of what she did to this year's eggs."

Blake frowned. "Why do I have the feeling I'm really not going to like your idea?"

"Because it's awful and I hate it?"

Yang grinned at her. "C'mon, it can't be _that _bad."

Weiss glanced at Winter, and she felt a flash of foreboding. "Well... she must have gotten all that glycinamide from somewhere. And she'd have needed access to a lot of dragon eggs right after they'd been injected. And we _do _know someone who's involved with both of those things."

Winter's jaw dropped. Whitley blurted out, "You want to go _home?!"_ and then Glacier finally got it and let out an anxious whine.

_"Want _isn't the word I'd use," Weiss grumbled, into the stunned silence that followed.

Blake recovered first. "I'm guessing this will be a Schnee only mission?" she asked, looking less than thrilled at the prospect.

Winter expected a resigned nod—but instead, her little sister _laughed. _"Oh, definitely not. We're bringing an army."


	91. The Hand that Once Fed Me

**Sometimes writing this leads me weird places. For example: I have spent far too much time pondering the question of what Jacques Schnee would smell like. Especially since the answer is probably just expensive cologne.**

* * *

**91\. The Hand that Once Fed Me**

* * *

Klein was already in the foyer when the knock came. He tucked away the feather duster he'd been using on a nearby suit of armor—not really part of his job, but he wasn't sure what to do with his downtime lately. Not with the manor so empty.

He opened the door and prepared to politely turn away whoever it was—Jacques had told him he didn't wish to be disturbed. But then his jaw went slack, and the two people he'd least expected to see back here were standing there.

"Miss Schnee!" he blurted, delighted. "And Miss Schnee. Come in, come in!"

Weiss smiled at him. "Hello, Klein."

He noticed for the first time that there were quite a few people behind them. Three of them stepped forward, all girls around Weiss' age. "These must be your teammates!"

"Hi!" The girl in red gave him a little wave.

They stepped over the threshold. Klein's eyes widened. More came through, then—James, two Beacon professors, and four boys he didn't recognize in the slightest.

"Er," he said. "Perhaps it would be best if some of you waited outside...?"

"Yeah," one of the boys said. "We know. The dragons aren't coming in." Klein blinked.

"Sorry about all this," Weiss said. "It's just that we—"

From somewhere outside there came a noise like a boiling kettle.

"They're _fine."_ Another voice, exasperated... familiar, though he couldn't place it. Too muffled by the closed doors. "Honestly, you're such a—don't you _dare!"_

Something struck the doors. They bounced and shuddered in their frames. Klein stumbled back, his hand over his heart.

"Stop that!"

Another crash. The doors burst open—one slammed against the opposite wall, and the other splintered and crashed to the ground. A gigantic head poked inside, blue eyes flickering curiously over the walls and floors. It sniffed the air...

"Ah," Klein said, feeling slightly faint. "Hello, Glacier."

"You ridiculous, lumbering old lizard!" Whitley—flustered, disheveled, _alive_—squeezed past the dragon's head. Then he circled around and, bracing both hands against the dragon's nose, gave him a shove that completely failed to move him. Glacier licked him and almost knocked him flat.

Klein edged away. Glacier spotted him, then, and tilted his head curiously. He put one forepaw over the threshold. Squirmed a little farther inside...

Winter rushed forward and grabbed one of his spines. "Stop it," she snapped. "You aren't going to fit."

Glacier wriggled. The doorframe started to make alarming groaning noises.

Whitley's shoulders slumped. "Oh, _wonderful," _he burst out. "Just _excellent, _let's demolish a wall and see what happens!"

Apparently taking this as encouragement, Glacier made one final push and tumbled into the foyer. A cloud of plaster dust and wood shrapnel followed him.

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. "I apologize for the... um..."

Glacier barked and spun around. His back foot crushed the suit of armor Klein had been dusting like a tin can.

"Not at all," he heard himself say. "Is—do you—shall I fetch your father?"

"Yes," replied Whitley, without looking up from where he was pushing Glacier's nose away from a painting on the wall.

Another ice dragon poked its head in through the hole in the wall and whistled. Its eyes were a deep, solid black that glittered when the light struck them.

"Not you too—_Specter!"_

It whined and pawed at the broken door on the floor. Weiss put a hand over her face. "Fine. _Fine. _I suppose the damage is already done."

Then there were two ice dragons exploring the foyer, and a third peeking inside and barking hopefully at Winter. Klein stumbled up the stairs, fanning himself with his pocket handkerchief. Somewhere behind him, he heard a crash.

"Sir?" He knocked at the door to Jacques' office. "Your children are here to see you."

The door swung open. "What?" Jacques demanded. "Which one?"

"Er."

A draconic screech echoed up the stairs, followed by a sound like tearing metal and Whitley's shout of, "Glacier, no!"

"...All of them, sir."

* * *

"Oh my god."

"It's... probably going to be fine," Blake said, though she didn't even sound like she believed herself.

_"Oh my god."_

"It's not that bad." Ruby gave her a hopeful smile. "I mean... Specter didn't break anything yet?"

_"Oh. My. God."_

Yang chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Glacier!" Whitley jumped up and wrapped his arms around the dragon's muzzle. "Stop licking the art!"

Weiss turned to Winter for help, but she was just sort of... standing there. Staring. Steele seemed to notice her discomfort and came to sit next to her, loftily ignoring the space around him—except, despite himself, for the occasional sniff.

Specter was still wandering around, staring at everything with wide eyes, but he was keeping his tail coiled up behind himself and being very careful where he stepped.

Glacier was not.

She hadn't _meant _to bring him or her brother in the first place, but he'd noticed them going and wouldn't stay behind, no matter what Whitley said. Even when they'd told him they needed to take a dragon carrier, because they had no idea how the Council soldiers around the campus would react to such a large group leaving the school. That had been enough to put Harpy off, which meant that Pyrrha and the rest of team JNPR had stayed behind, but Glacier had stubbornly refused to let Weiss and Winter go alone.

Sweet, except for the knot of guilt it had planted in her stomach. He was supposed to have stayed outside! If _her _idea brought him back here...

But then there were footsteps coming down the main stairwell, and there was no more time for doubts. Weiss drew herself up and stood directly in Father's path as he descended. He stopped several steps above her and looked down. His eyes narrowed.

"James," he said coldly. "I see you've managed to drag all three of my children into this farce."

Weiss couldn't seem to speak. Then Yang bumped her elbow, and Ruby grinned at her, and Blake took one of her hands. Specter's cool breath ruffled her hair. She breathed in.

"No one dragged us anywhere," she snapped, her head held high.

His lip curled. "Do you really expect me to believe that _my _son—"

"We need to see the company injection records."

His jaw jumped. Weiss had learned the hard way a long time ago that he _hated _being interrupted.

"I am not having _anyone,_ least of all my own daughter, smashing their way into my home and making demands of me. And where is Wh—"

"We apologize for the... abrupt entrance," Winter cut in. "But it's a matter of urgency." Then she glanced to her left, to where Ironwood was standing.

"Jacques," he said. "I am sorry about all this, but I needed to talk to you. It's about the rogues."

Father rounded on him. "You have the _nerve _to come here? _Here? _After everything you've done? You're a traitor, James. I have nothing to say to you."

* * *

Whitley edged around Glacier's bulk. The ice dragon had gone very still—there was a tapestry stuck to one of his spines, in plain view of Father. He whimpered, like he knew he'd done something wrong but wasn't sure what.

Father wasn't looking at them. He was glaring at the General, and at Weiss and Winter, as the four of them argued. Whitley pressed himself against Glacier's side, stroking his scales, trying not to think about how this might be the last time he got to do this.

Oscar stood about ten feet away, usually the smallest safe distance from Glacier for people who weren't family. He hesitated. Then hurried forward, so that he was right next to Whitley.

"Are you—I don't—um." He gave up, and put a hand on Whitley's shoulder. It was... surprisingly helpful.

"—cannot seriously be demanding concessions from me!" Father scoffed. Whitley peeked around Glacier and saw Weiss between her teammates with her arms folded, and Winter stiff at the General's side.

"This has nothing to do with the Council," Ironwood said. "It's about the _rogues, _Jacques, as I keep telling you. We think Cinder Fall sabotaged this year's eggs."

Father narrowed his eyes. "What, is that supposed to explain the plague of useless hatchlings?"

"They are not _useless," _Weiss snapped. "But yes, that's why there were so many at risk of culling."

"And you're blaming _me."_

"No." Winter spoke through gritted teeth. "We think your records might help us prove that she was responsible. And if you have nothing to hide..."

"Oh, save your breath! None of you have _any _jurisdiction whatsoever, I don't need to prove anything to you. For all I know you want those records for some criminal activity."

"What else could we _possibly _do with that information?" Weiss demanded. "Publish elemental demographics?! You're being ridiculous."

"I'm being _threatened _in my own home. And don't think I haven't noticed that you _somehow _seem to have possession of my kidnapped dragon—"

Whitley didn't duck away in time. Father's eyes locked on his, then widened. "Get away from there!" he shouted.

He almost did it. Instinct made him sway on his feet, ready to back away... but instead he pressed himself against Glacier's chest. The dragon whined and shifted from foot to foot.

"Glacier." Father snapped his fingers. "Here. Now."

* * *

Everything was quiet. Much too quiet. Glacier whimpered into the silence, and took a step. Then another. The smells of the house broke over him like a tide. But there was something missing... and something sour in its place.

He hesitated, halfway to Jacques. Looked over his shoulder. The small one stood with Ragnar's boy, shivering. Was he cold?

Glacier had never been able to help when he was cold.

Another click of his rider's fingers. He started guiltily, and his tail tipped over a vase near the wall. It shattered. Glacier ducked his head and slunk closer. Paused again...

But he was close enough to smell him. Like a hard frost, the scent of pine needles carried on a biting wind, cold steel. More to it, now, parts the little ones didn't have—the sharp stinging smell, and another one, artificial, that almost drowned out the rest. And underneath that, underneath everything, an echo of Glacier's own scent. Almost faded away.

He moved closer. The singing one stirred, as if to step in his way, but the steely one grabbed her arm and whispered... something. Glacier wasn't paying attention.

One perfect hand came up. His neck stretched out, helplessly, until it came down to stroke his head. The wedding band clinked against his scales. A purr rumbled up from somewhere inside, somewhere that still held ghosts of his first week of life, when Jacques would hold him in his lap and feed him with those hands.

"Good."

A shiver rolled through him. Calm. Contentment.

Jacques kept petting his nose. It was his favorite spot—except, maybe, for the place Whitley had found, right behind his jaw. His eyes fluttered closed.

"You need to be more careful," Jacques said. Glacier flicked an ear—but his rider wasn't talking to him anymore. The petting slowed. "He's temperamental. It's dangerous for anyone but me to be so close."

Glacier opened one eye. Dangerous? What was dangerous?

Then the small one's voice. Shaky. "He isn't. Sir."

The petting stopped. Glacier whined and bumped his nose against Jacques, like he did with the little ones.

"No," Jacques snapped.

Glacier withdrew his head, his ears drooping.

"Well, Whitley? Do you think you know more about my dragon than I do?"

The little one was drooping, too, hugging his arms around himself. "I only meant... he saved me."

"Hm." Another pat on his nose. Glacier's back leg thumped on the stairs, until Jacques clicked his fingers again and he made himself stop. "He knows you're my son. It's only natural he'd want to return you to me.

That was good, wasn't it? It was good that he brought the little Jacques home. So why did he still look so cold?

"All the same. He's prone to lashing out, and I won't have you getting yourself hurt. You'll stay away from him from now on."

Glacier picked his head up. Away? He didn't want the small one to go away. He whined and thumped the ground with his tail.

The small one shouted, "No!" He didn't want to go away either.

"Enough," Jacques said, harsh and angry. "Glacier, wait for me outside."

He pawed at the ground. He didn't want to go outside. The stable was outside.

A click of his fingers. _"Now."_

Glacier trembled. He had to listen to that voice, didn't he? But if he went outside, the little ones would go away. He had to make the voice stop.

He puffed up his chest, spines rising all along his throat. Jacques staggered back, his eyes widening. Glacier moved closer. Right up to his ear. And shrieked as loudly as he could.

Then, satisfied, he trotted over to the little Jacques. The other two had moved over near him. That was good. He coiled around the three of them and snorted.

_Mine now._

* * *

Ringing silence. Steele didn't even dare _breathe._

Then Specter perked his head up and chirped, "That looks fun!"

And before anyone could think to stop him he trotted up to Jacques and screamed in his other ear. The man cringed backwards, shouting and waving his arms, and almost fell off the stairs.

"Specter, come back here!" Steele barked. "Honestly! Have some decorum."

Although...

"Steele, _no." _Winter said flatly.

Jacques spluttered. His face went red, then purple. Steele padded over to where Glacier was coiled around his rider and her siblings, putting himself between them and their father.

It took a moment for the man to form any coherent words. "That's—this is—how _dare _you—!" His voice climbed louder and louder, until he swore and held his hands over his ears. "I'll have you all arrested!"

...Well. They'd _tried _diplomacy.

Steele stalked forward and loomed over the man's head. His throat bobbed in a convulsive swallow, and his voice trailed off into nothing. "Nno," Steele said, and blocked the way back upstairs with one foreleg.

Jacques opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

He remembered all the times Winter had snuck outside and slept in his stall, back when he was still a youngling, because she'd gotten a call in the middle of the night. Perhaps he hadn't made his point well enough. He picked the man up by the back of his coat. That prompted a lot of kicking and shouting.

Steele dropped him again in the middle the foyer, and glared pointedly when he made as if to bolt. He stayed put.

Weiss recovered first. "I think... everyone in this room would rather we left. So how about showing us those records so that we can be on our way?"

No response.

"Um, Weiss?" Blake was still wincing and pressing her faunus ears against her head. "I... don't think he can hear you."


	92. Familiar Smells

**The timing of this whole arc with Volume 7 was just so perfect... and also a complete accident. Go figure!**

* * *

**92\. Familiar Smells**

* * *

The small one was hugging his head.

Glacier purred and nuzzled at him. It felt very nice, but made it hard to smell things, so he deposited him on his back instead. Then he could wander around the other side of the room and investigate.

The others were still talking. So was Jacques. Glacier wanted to go to him, but if he did that his rider would take the little ones away. He didn't want that. It felt better to ignore them.

He sniffed his way around the back of the room. A painting there of a snowy forest—he'd stared up at it when he was small. There was still a dent in the lower-right corner where Snowflake had tried to climb inside. Glacier stared at it for a long moment, wondering if Jacques would let him keep it.

...Definitely not.

Beside it, another big metal man. It smelled like oil and rust. Not familiar at all. Glacier snorted and knocked it over.

From his back, the small one sighed.

Another smell. Old wood and dust. He found a door and batted at it with his paw. "Let me!" the small one said, and slid off his back. Glacier whined. He didn't want the little ones getting too far. Not here.

But the small one only opened the door. Inside was a hallway, too narrow for Glacier to fit more than his snout inside, and an ancient grandfather clock ticking away in an alcove. He stared at it, mesmerized by the pendulum. Once, it had lived out in this big room. He tried to reach inside and grab it, but it was too far away. He retreated with his ears drooping.

There was the short man, still on the stairs, who edged away when he poked his head over the banister to get a better look. He must be alright, though, because seeing him had made the singing one smile. He smelled like warm bread.

"Oh," he said, and then swallowed. "Oh. Yes. Hello again."

"That's Klein," the small Jacques told him. "He works here."

There was another smell on him. Glacier leaned in closer. The man's pupils shrank, and he started breathing very fast.

"Glacier, no!" The little one tapped his flank. "Leave him be."

He flicked an ear. It wasn't like he was hurting the strange man. He just wanted to know why that smell was so familiar. Was it even coming from the man? He bumped his nose against his coat, trying to be sure.

"Glacier!" Specter trotted over to him and sat, his tail flicking anxiously. "Weiss says to stop that, you're scaring him."

He blinked. The short man _had _gotten very shaky, but he'd thought that was because it was cold in this room. Glacier withdrew... but there was still that _smell._ He knew it from somewhere.

Gingerly, he put a paw on the edge of the stairs.

Specter's ears went back. "Sorry," he said, and picked the short man up by the back of his coat. His eyes went very wide for a moment, before he was placed gingerly on the ground in the main room.

"Glacier!" The singing one's voice. "Glacier, you can't just—!"

He hopped up onto the stairs. There were a few groaning sounds, and his back claws got stuck in the carpet. He wiggled them free. Somewhere behind him, Jacques shouted. He yelped and charged up the stairs—and the smell overwhelmed him.

A lot of people were calling for him to come back, now. The walls were too close, and there were lots of small breakable things in the way. He crawled past them, knocking some of them to the ground, hunching his shoulders to fit. A few of the spines on the back of his neck scraped the ceiling. He paused, tried to turn his head to look at the small one, and accidentally put his nose through a painting.

"I'm fine," the little one sighed. "Unlike the decor, I know to _duck _when you go haring off like this."

Glacier yipped and squirmed further into the house. He could smell the little ones all around—though the steely one's scent was old and faded. And the other scent, the one he knew he should remember, grew stronger with every step.

* * *

Knocking. Distant, muffled, and persistent.

Willow watched wine swirl in the bottom of her glass.

Voices rising. Shouting.

She took a sip. Swallowed. Stared dully at the wall.

Somewhere below, a dragon shrieked.

A furrow in her brow. She blinked, slowly, and put down the glass. It took an effort to think... why was that so odd?

Right. The dragons were all gone.

Willow braced herself against the sideboard. Her breathing came quick and shallow, from somewhere very far away. She squeezed her eyes shut and groped for the glass. Her hand struck it from the side and knocked it to the ground.

She stared at the stain spreading through the carpet.

Another shriek. Another twisting, wrenching pain inside. Ignoring the fallen glass, she lunged for the bottle and took a long swallow.

And why not? Why not? Everyone who needed her was gone, now.

A sound like thunder on the stairs. Her head was already spinning—too much, too fast, and she still hadn't eaten anything today. Someone or something was coming towards her. She could hear shattering glass. The White Fang, perhaps? Back again after stealing her son?

She'd make a disappointing hostage.

So she reclined against the sideboard as the attacker approached and downed the rest of the bottle in one swig—then held it by the neck. She'd never be able to pay them back all the hurt they'd caused... but trying seemed like a good final act. The sort of thing her daughters might do.

The door shattered.

Willow stumbled back, tripped over the sideboard, and landed in the wine stain on the carpet. Staring up at the empty door frame—with Glacier's face poking through it. His eyes went wide when he saw her, and he let out a joyful bark. The bottle dropped from her nerveless fingers.

"For the last time!"

Any words she might have spoken died in her throat.

"You need to let me open the doors. I have these things called _thumbs, _see?"

Glacier butted his head against the door frame and huffed when it didn't fit.

"No. I know what you're thinking and _no."_

The ice dragon stuck his tongue out and squirmed, twisting his neck around until, with a final _scrape, _his horns slotted in through the doorway and he could shove his whole head inside. The voice outside groaned. "Now look what you've done! It's going to take forever to get you out. And what are you even doing in there? It's _my _room, you know."

Glacier peered at her with those gorgeous blue eyes and said, "Lo!"

Willow let out a choked noise. Almost a sob. He licked her face and finally, _finally, _she could move again. She groped for his horns and hauled herself upright.

At the same moment, her baby boy poked his head into the room and froze.

"You're alive," she breathed.

"Oh." Whitley glanced nervously at Glacier. "Yes. I am."

She stumbled towards him. Her hands trembled as she touched his face. "You're _here."_

He nodded stiffly.

Willow threw herself at him. Whitley tripped, made a startled noise, and would have fallen over if Glacier hadn't pressed his nose against his back. He was taller than when he'd disappeared.

"It's... good to see you too?" He patted her uncertainly on the back. "Please stop crying."

Was she?

Oh, yes. There was a damp spot on his coat.

She drew away reluctantly, just enough so that she could get a better look at him. Hair had grown down into his eyes, and there was a dusting of stubble on his chin. His clothes were new—weren't they? New on him, but clearly old. Her head spun. Where—_how _had he?

But that wasn't important. "Are you alright? Did they hurt you?" The words came out slurred.

"I'm fine." He shoved his hands in his pockets, a habit Jacques hated. "Glacier protected me."

At the sound of his name, the dragon barked and—judging by the sound of smashing porcelain—wagged his tail. Willow hugged him, too, around the neck, and shuddered at the feeling of a purr against her chest. "You—you _wonderful—"_

Any words she could say would be wholly inadequate. All she could do was whisper, _"Thank you."_

* * *

Whitley shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, in what he was quite sure was _his _bedroom. "What are you doing in here, anyway?" he asked, glancing over at the sideboard. That was definitely new.

"Oh." Mother blinked a few times. "I started sleeping in here a few weeks ago. I didn't mean to move in, I just..."

Right. Whitley rubbed the back of his neck and wished that people would stop acting like... well... like he'd been missing, possibly presumed dead.

Glacier barked and bumped mother with his nose. She stared at him uncertainly before raising a hand. He nuzzled against it. "He's so..."

Whitley fidgeted in place. "He likes to be scratched right here." He pointed. "Behind his jaw."

She followed the suggestion, and Glacier melted. He tried to flop over onto his side, and there was a hideous tearing sound as his spines dragged across the wall. Mother sank down with him until she was kneeling on the carpet. Her breath hitched. Then she was crying, or laughing, or maybe a bit of both, while Whitley stood stiff as a statue.

He didn't know what to do with all this. Couldn't even remember the last time she'd done either—she was normally blank. Numb. All this... for him?

Or perhaps she was just very, very drunk. There was an empty bottle on the floor, after all.

Whitley cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "The girls are downstairs."

Mother looked up, her mouth falling slightly open. "They're here too?"

"Yes."

She frowned. Apparently just now wondering when and how he'd gotten there. "You were... you were gone. And Glacier brought you back? So why are they...?"

"It's a long story," Whitley said. "And Glacier's demolished most of the foyer, so we'll probably have to leave in a hurry. I thought you should know, in case you wanted to come see them first."

"He did what?"

Glacier barked and wagged his tail again, shattering an expensive bust.

"...I see."

It took their combined efforts to get the ice dragon's great head out of the doorway. Whitley was just glad they hadn't needed to resort to asking Klein for butter—not that anything about this was _dignified, _but at least this way he could cling to a few scraps. Then he had to turn around, crushing several pieces of furniture in the process, and start walking the other way.

The stairs proved... challenging. For one thing, it was apparently much easier for dragons to go up than down. There wasn't room for them to walk beside him, and Glacier refused to let them stay behind him where he couldn't see them, so Whitley had to sit on his back with mother, and get her to duck her head as he skidded down first one step, then another. She swayed and almost fell off. Whitley grabbed her arm and told her to hold on to the spines.

Then, finally, they stood on level ground in the foyer. Whitley got the sense that they had just interrupted an argument. He slid off the dragon's back, then helped mother back to the ground. "This is _unacceptable—" _Father started to say, but Glacier ignored him in favor of nudging mother with his nose, herding her and Whitley towards his sisters.

Dead silence, and an audience of _far _too many people. Mother threw her arms around Weiss, then Winter, while he stood there wishing fervently that he was back in the woods.

"I've heard... the most _ridiculous _things," mother said, her eyes unfocused. "About... about..."

She trailed off. Glacier barked and coiled around them, his tail wagging hard enough that it cracked the floor. Everyone else was forced to back away as he rolled around, completely heedless of his surroundings.

Mother seemed to be the only one of the humans trapped inside this highly affectionate prison who didn't mind. Mostly because she was too drunk to be uncomfortable. Whitley exchanged a stiff nod with Winter, and Weiss cleared her throat several times without saying anything.

"Um..." One of Weiss' teammates, the blonde one, clapped her hands together. "Right. So. The records!"

Whitley could have keeled over with relief when most of the rest of the room devolved back into an argument. Except for Oscar, who was looking directly at him. Smiling.

"You have no idea what privacy is, do you?" he grumbled at Glacier.

The dragon whistled and licked his reddening face.

* * *

Winter and Weiss faced their father from across a great distance.

Partly because Glacier's tail was in the way—but mostly, James suspected, because the man was an ass. Winter was doing most of the talking, her arms tightly folded, her stance rigid. He tried to step up next to her, to offer support if nothing else. He thought better of it when Glacier hissed at him.

"I will not negotiate with terrorists!" Jacques spluttered. His face was still blotchy red with rage, and he was shouting—though it was hard to tell if that was out of anger or because he still couldn't hear very well.

Weiss scoffed. "Don't be so dramatic. We're only asking to see a few files."

A tic started in his jaw. "You broke into my home," he spat, through gritted teeth. "Then proceeded to threaten and assault me—and now you want my help?"

"Enough." Winter took a step forward, over Glacier's tail. He whined and rolled to his feet, his neck extending towards her. "If you're going to insist on seeing it that way, fine. But we're here, and we're not leaving until we see those records. Bring them out. Now."

Jacques was silent for a moment, breathing heavily, rage seeping through the cracks in his composure. Then, slowly, his face relaxed into cold indifference. "What are you going to do if I refuse? Attack your own father? I don't know what you've done to Glacier, but I'm quite sure you'd need to hurt him too."

James tensed. Glacier—who seemed to have tuned out of their conversation completely—whistled at Winter, his head hovering a few feet behind her.

"No," said Winter. "But I expect you'll want your manor back at some point."

When she didn't look at him, Glacier huffed. It stirred a few strands of white hair that had escaped from Winter's bun.

Jacques spread his hands. "By all means. Make yourselves at home. Though I will warn you—the Council do visit from time to time, to check up on me. My work is very important to them, after all."

Glacier inched forward, slowly encroaching on Winter's peripheral vision. Only when his snout was poking over her shoulder did she notice him and jump. He barked, as if to say, _Pay attention to me!_

James tried to stop it. He really did. But watching Winter and her father arguing with deadly seriousness, in the mangled wreck of his foyer, with Glacier acting like a gigantic puppy in the background... He started to laugh. It was silent, and hidden behind his hand, and perhaps a little bit hysterical. Jacques noticed that his shoulders were shaking.

"You—! I—!" he spluttered, and his face went from red to white. He was so apoplectic with rage he could hardly speak, but he managed to yell, "Out! Get out!"

"You can't—" Weiss started to say.

"I will not be ordered about by _children. _You!" He gestured rudely at Glynda, then Peter. "Stay. Take the damn records, for all the good they'll do you when the Council has the lot of you imprisoned and your _filthy _creatures executed. The rest of you, _out!"_

James felt his own temper surge—but before he could say anything, Winter dropped into a shallow bow. "Of course."

Weiss smiled sweetly and took Whitley by the arm. "We'll wait right outside. And of course, we'll have to send Pepper in. She won't like to be separated from her rider for too long."

_"Out!"_

They left. It took a second to convince Glacier to go—and he only really agreed to it once he'd herded Whitley and Willow out ahead of him. Pepper and several other dragons were already jostling at the door to look inside, so it only took a second to send her in to make sure Jacques couldn't try anything.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to let him dictate terms like that?" James asked, keeping his voice low.

"He didn't," Winter said, with a small smirk. "He lost his temper and gave us concessions he didn't mean to. It's something he likes to do to competitors."

Weiss snickered. "He _did _like to say that the fastest way to win a negotiation was to make your opponent angry. And, well..."

Glacier blinked innocently at them.

Whitley sighed in relief and leaned against the ice dragon's neck. "Wonderful," he grumbled. "Let's never do that again."


	93. Something Sour

**Hello folks! Sorry this one's a bit late, time-wise. I wound up getting food poisoning right when I was going to bed yesterday, and didn't get to sleep until like nine in the morning. Let it be known that being sleep deprived _and _nauseous is a terrible combination!**

* * *

**93\. Something Sour**

* * *

"I'm confused," Specter said, as they all piled outside. "Is he really Weiss' dad?"

Steele's claws twitched. "Unfortunately," he growled.

"He's not like Tai at all."

"No, he's not." Steele gave him a little nudge. "Why don't you say hello to Willow instead?"

"Oh." Specter had to poke his head over Glacier's shoulder to see. "Lo!"

She turned. Specter clambered over Glacier's foreleg so that he could sniff her. Mostly she smelled like something sour he didn't like very much, but there were traces of a smell that reminded him of Weiss. He pressed his nose into her trembling hand.

Her eyes welled up. Specter drew back, alarmed, and whimpered. He tried licking her face, but that only made it worse.

"Stop that," Whitley said, giving him a little shove.

"Hey!" Weiss stepped up next to him. "It's not his fault."

"What's going on?" he whined. "Why's she upset?"

"It's alright," Willow said, and reached out to touch his flank. "He's just... beautiful."

Weiss went very stiff. "Thank you."

Her mom was still crying. Specter shifted from paw to paw, and shot a frantic glance over his shoulder at his siblings. Fang just flicked his tail, as if to say, _I don't know, don't look at me!_ Pit whuffed. Storm barked encouragingly at him.

Glacier rolled onto his side and whistled expectantly. Willow started petting him, and murmured something in his ear that Specter didn't catch. Everyone else knew enough to back up and give them lots of room. Sure enough, Glacier's tail started to wag and demolished several bushes and a fancy lamppost.

Weiss was still tense. Specter nuzzled her side, and she gave him a tight smile and a pat on the nose. That was no good. He glanced over at where Glacier was playing with Whitley and Willow. The older dragon lay on his back, now, wiggling back and forth in the light dusting of snow on the ground.

Specter trotted over and copied him. The cold of the snow felt wonderful on his back as he thrashed around, and flurries of snow Glacier kicked up kept landing on his belly. When he rolled back to his feet, there was an imprint that looked a little bit like a many-legged Grimm. Another clump of snow landed on his head.

When he glanced back at Weiss, she had her hand in front of her mouth to hide a smile. Emboldened, he pounced on Glacier and sent them both rolling in the snow. There was a startled yip. He went very still when they'd landed, wondering if he'd just made a terrible mistake. Then came the sound of wings flapping, and a small tidal wave of snow crashed over him.

It took a moment to blink it all out of his eyes. Once he did, he found Glacier sitting smugly with his tail wound around Whitley and Willow. Weiss' shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. Specter had never had a better reason to play in the snow.

* * *

Blake couldn't help but smile. Specter had started wrestling playfully with Glacier, and they were kicking up so much snow that it almost looked like a localized blizzard had come down on the lawn. Steele watched them from a distance, his neck arched in aloof amusement... up until Specter pounced on him. Then he glanced over at Winter, as if asking permission.

"Fine," she sighed. "Why not?"

Steele was still a little stiff, but it didn't take long for Specter to teach him and Glacier the tail catching game. Glacier wasn't very good at it, since he seemed to underestimate how big he was and usually just ended up tackling the other two, but he didn't seem to mind either. He rolled onto his back with his tongue lolling out. Barked at Willow and Whitley, who knelt to pet his head. Winter and Weiss stayed back—probably wise, since Glacier didn't seem to be very aware of where his flailing legs and tail were.

A tap on her shoulder distracted her. When she turned, Sun was grinning at her. "Cute, huh?"

Blake looked at Weiss' soft smile and said, "Very."

"Think the old man will help us?" asked Neptune, from Sun's other side.

He'd spoken quietly, but Weiss must have heard him. She turned and scoffed. "Only if he has no choice. We... didn't exactly go about this diplomatically."

Glacier paused in his play to tug a scrap of canvas off one of his horns.

Blake's ears flattened nervously. "There _are _other ways of looking at those records," she pointed out.

Neptune blanched, and Sun smothered an incredulous laugh with his hand. Weiss glanced at Specter, who was chasing Glacier in circles while Steele watched. "He won't miss me for a little while," she said. "And I... would like a minute, anyway." Her eyes flicked towards Willow.

Sun did a double take. "Wait, are we actually breaking in?"

"It _is _my house."

All three of them turned to look at Blake. She was already regretting opening her mouth. "What?" she blurted.

Neptune gave her an apologetic grin. "You're the expert on this kind of thing, right?"

Blake wanted to argue with that... but he wasn't wrong.

* * *

Jacques was silent for a long moment, once his children had left the manor. Glynda waited for a while—they had the advantage here, so it couldn't hurt to let him stew a little. Then she cleared her throat and said, "The records."

He scowled at her and snapped, "Klein."

The butler was still standing where Specter had dropped him, looking overwhelmed and a little frazzled, but he maintained enough composure to bow and say, "Sir."

"Fetch the files in the upper right drawer of my desk. The video files, mind, not the paper."

"Of course, sir." Klein vanished upstairs, leaving her and Peter alone in the vast and partially demolished foyer. Jacques had finally gone from purple to red again, and his breathing had slowed down.

"I suppose you must consider this a great victory." The false coolness in his voice didn't quite reach his eyes. "Bringing my own children in here to threaten me."

"We thought they might be able to get through to you," Peter said, affably ignoring the man's sneer. "Alas, it seems it wasn't meant to be."

Pepper snorted. Jacques turned his glare on her. "Is the beast really necessary?" he drawled. "It's not as though I'm going to physically overpower the pair of you."

Glynda rolled her eyes. "Don't be deliberately obtuse. We know you have security in the building, and we _also _know it's not enough to handle twelve dragons at once."

"Twelve." His gaze turned sharp. "There should be thirteen. Where's yours, I wonder?"

She was suddenly and forcefully reminded of why no one, not even the Council, liked to deal with this man in person. Peter bristled, but Glynda grabbed his shoulder. He was just lashing out, trying to unsettle them the way his children had unsettled him. No need to show him how well it had worked. She stayed silent and waited for Klein to return.

He was out of breath when he did, carrying a folder full of miniature disks and a holoscreen projector. Jacques gestured towards the center of the foyer. Klein set up the screen within seconds, inserted one of the disks, and stepped back.

"I didn't think you'd take my written word for it." Jacques gestured at the screen. "There you are. The eggs are filmed so long as they're on my property."

He cued up dozens of feeds on one screen, until they looked like a cluster of chicken eggs. Then he handed a remote to Glynda and let her flip through the footage. Even sped up, there was too much of it to check by hand, but she saw no hint of anyone giving extra injections to the eggs.

"You won't mind if we take these," she said, and gathered up the files before he could protest.

His smile looked more like an animal raising its hackles. "Of course not. I have multiple copies."

"And we'll need the written records as well, to make sure everything matches up."

He smirked. "If you want to waste your time, by all means." A snap of his fingers. "Klein."

The butler hurried off again. He returned with more folders—Peter stepped forward to relieve him of most of them, while Glynda took the rest. She flipped through with calculated carelessness until a name caught her eye.

An entire transport ship full of glycinamide vanished off the records, between one month and the next. Tons of the stuff, and yet no word of it had ever reached Ozpin or James. She pointed it out to Jacques. "Why didn't you report this as stolen?"

"I did." He waved a hand. "It's useless, nobody cared."

The file crinkled under her fingertips as her grip tightened. This was it. This was what Cinder had used to wreak havoc on this years hatchlings. She was looking at the weapon that had killed Tornado and, indirectly, Nautilus.

They had proof of the _how_—but they still needed concrete evidence of _who _had done it.

* * *

"You guys suck," Neptune said, as he clung to the northern wall of Schnee manor. There were these weird decorative patterns carved into the stone, with just enough room to wedge his fingers in. Calling them _handholds _would be way too generous. Of course, Sun and Blake were already a floor above him. Weiss, who had insisted on going last since she was wearing a skirt—which, fair—reached up and tugged on his pant leg.

"Hurry up!" she hissed. "I can keep us away from security once we're inside, but it's not like I have a lot of practice climbing around on the walls!"

"I'm trying!" He hauled himself up another half a foot. "It's way less stressful being up this high with Nymph."

Far, far below—about fifteen feet—Nymph let out a little bark of encouragement. Huo was muffling his laughter into his wing. And Pit just watched, his head cocked to one side, his tail curled around his feet.

Neptune pulled himself up a little higher, and his fingers slipped. He yelped, scrabbled at the stonework, missed, and tipped backwards. The instants seemed to stretch as he passed the point of no return, with his body almost parallel with the ground. He caught a snapshot of Blake and Sun staring wide-eyed down at him. Then he stopped dead, his hands still flailing uselessly in midair.

He looked down. "Thanks, Pit..."

A bark, and a feeling like someone was lifting him up by the armpits. Then he touched down gently beside the window they'd been aiming for, the one Weiss said led to her bedroom. Pit lifted her, next. By the time he finished with that, Blake and Sun were already up there with them. Blake stuck a lien card inside, jiggled it a bit, and pushed the window wide.

"That was... disturbingly easy," Weiss said, as she dropped to the ground inside.

"If it helps, I'm pretty sure the perimeter is where most of the actual security is, and I'd have a harder time getting past that. Most people don't like being surrounded by armed guards inside their own homes."

Weiss squinted at her. "I notice you still haven't said you couldn't do it."

"Only if I had a good enough reason," Blake said, smirking, and hopped inside. Sun jumped after her, then stretched and yawned. Neptune groaned and flopped over the sill.

"This is, uh... nice?" Sun glanced around. "Kind of... empty."

Weiss frowned. "I didn't collect that many sentimental objects. And the ones I did were at Beacon."

"Anything you want to steal?" he asked. "Y'know, while we're here."

She gave him a flat look. "Don't touch anything."

"Alright, alright!" He opened the door with a flourish. "Wouldn't want to... disturb..." His mouth dropped open.

They all crowded into the hallway, only to find most of it completely demolished. Broken tiles littered the floor, scarred and pitted with claw marks. Parts of the ceiling had been shredded, and paintings and sculptures lay torn and broken in their alcoves.

There was a moment of tense, frozen silence. Neptune glanced at Blake. Then Sun.

Weiss started to shake. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but not before he heard a snicker escape. "It's not funny," she said, like it was _them _laughing.

"Sorry, Weiss." Sun thumped her on the back. "It kind of is."

Blake grinned at her. "You're sure there's nothing you've always wanted to smash? I don't think he'd notice one more."

"Oh my god. He's going to... I don't even _know."_

Neptune swallowed nervously. "How about we be, y'know, elsewhere when that happens?"

"Right." Weiss squared her shoulders and pointed down the hall, in the opposite direction from Glacier's trail of destruction. "His office is that way."


	94. Penmanship

**Since I generally try to keep a few chapters as buffer, this was actually written right after I watched episode 8, which amuses me.**

* * *

**94\. Penmanship**

* * *

Jacques Schnee's office might not have been the absolute _last _place Sun would've expected himself to end up... except, no, it definitely was. He jumped when Neptune shut the door behind him. The room was freezing, and silent as a tomb. Cluttered with photographs, most of them of Weiss' dad when he was younger. One family shot that was jarring by contrast, when he'd just seen Willow and the children playing with Glacier. They looked like they were getting ready for a funeral.

"Make sure you put everything back _exactly _where you found it," Weiss said—her voice instinctively hushed. "He'll notice if you don't."

She and Blake both looked like they'd snap if they were wound any tighter. Sun took a risk and whispered, "I don't know why, but I thought it would smell more like mothballs." Weiss glared at him, but he thought he caught her trying to hide a smile. And, really, what was the big deal? They were just casually poking around the personal space of one of the scariest people in Remnant.

Sun was careful not to move anything, at first, but the place was so neat that there was really only so much he could do without opening drawers and rifling around inside filing cabinets. He winced every time he made a noise, as if the old man could hear him from the first floor.

"Uh..." Neptune said, holding up a file. "I'm pretty sure the money here doesn't add up."

Weiss crossed the room to read over his shoulder. "Neptune, that's a tax document."

"Yeah."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "One, we're not auditing him. And two, that isn't news. I'm sure if we looked closer we could figure out which legal loophole he's using but it _really _doesn't matter."

"Oh."

Weiss turned away, but stopped before she could go back to the cabinet she'd been searching. "Blake?"

She'd gone still, holding something she'd found on a shelf. Sun and Neptune glanced at one another, and both lost the fight with their curiosity. Blake was holding an old album that, judging by the noise it made when opened, had gone untouched for a long time.

Tucked inside was a wedding photograph. Willow beamed at the camera, while Jacques looked... a bit stiff, maybe, but he'd looped an arm over her shoulders in a way that made it hard to imagine that this was the same person they'd just met. A dragon's head poked in from one side, its neck looping around the newly-weds. Its eyes were pale blue, almost exactly like Weiss'.

"Sorry," Blake muttered.

"It's fine." Weiss bit her lip. "I've never seen a picture of her before."

Sun touched the edge of the page. It wasn't laminated—just a clear plastic sleeve that photos could be slipped in and out of. "Take it," he blurted, before he could think better of it.

"What?"

"Take it. It's yours too, right? And he's not looking at it. It'll be years before he notices."

"If you folded it, like, right here—" Neptune poked the space between Jacques and Willow. "You'd have a great picture of your mom and Snowflake."

"Or we could get a pen and give him a dumb hat," Sun suggested. Blake elbowed him hard in the stomach, and he had to bend over and wheeze.

"We should keep looking," Weiss said, but her fingers curled around the photograph. She glanced over her shoulder towards the door, then slipped it out of the album and into her pocket.

"Man," Sun said, a while later. "I'm feeling kinda useless here. I keep finding his junk mail and crap. Look at this!" He waved the letter he'd just picked up. "I swear, give it ten more minutes and I'm gonna find an ad for penis enlargement—"

Weiss stared at him, horrified. Her mouth slightly open.

Sun went over the last few words that had come out of his mouth. "Uh, sorry, bad joke!"

But she wasn't listening to him. She snatched the letter right out of his hands and breathed, "This is it."

* * *

Weiss' hands shook as she held the letter. It was hard to decipher the writing—all of it was in a thin, elegant scrawl that was nearly illegible... but very familiar.

"I'm confused," Neptune said. "That definitely looks like junk mail."

_Our deepest thanks ... humbled by the gravity of your generosity ... on behalf of Mantle Sugarworks United. _It was the sort of letter Father probably received dozens of every month, from various charities he'd donated to. Irrelevant. Except that there was no such thing as Mantle Sugarworks United, and it was signed, _Dr. Arthur Watts._

"I recognize the writing."

Blake stiffened up. "Watts?" She squinted at the body of the letter. "Is this code?"

"I'm not sure."

Weiss flipped the paper over. There was a pen-and-ink sketch of a cake. _With your help, we've been able to launch several new recipes._

She skimmed frantically back and forth, wrinkling the letter as she backed up into the center of the office. There was more—appreciation for a shipment of icing Father had apparently funded, a not-so-subtle hint that he might have shared information about ice dragons. But _why? _Why would he risk losing the monopoly he'd fought so hard to maintain?

_New recipes._

To get a stranglehold on _more _dragon types. There was no way he was only accidentally complicit in all this, no possibility of him being tricked or coerced into helping, somehow. He was actively helping them.

"We need to show this to the General," she said. "Now."

* * *

Peter would be the first to say that Glynda was good at many things... but hiding contempt was not one of them.

"And you have _no _video recordings of the incident," she drawled. "Just as your driver _can't recall _whether or not the attackers were wearing White Fang masks."

"They must have been," Jacques said carelessly. "Who else would be so eager to steal from me?"

"I would _think _that she would have noticed if they were with the White Fang."

"The incident was quite traumatic, I'm sure. All sorts of details escape a person's notice."

Glynda scoffed. "You seem to have quite the fixation on them."

"They've been difficult to ignore."

"A-_hem," _Peter interrupted. "Mister Schnee, have you considered the possibility that these ruffians were motivated, not by a wish to harm _you, _but a desire for the chemicals they stole?"

Jacques raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Why," he said, his gaze turning sharp, "I simply can't imagine why anyone would want something so useless that it's been moldering away in storage for almost a decade. Can you?"

Peter cleared his throat again, much more nervously. "Ah, well, perhaps some heretofore undiscovered use..."

But Glynda cut in before Jacques could reply. "Why was such a useless chemical being moved in the first place? Why not leave it in storage?"

Jacques heaved a put-upon sigh. "New zoning laws. The warehouse I had been using was converted into a residential area. An unfortunate occupational hazard in Mantle, with how prone the population is to multiplying."

Glynda opened her mouth to reply—but before she had the chance, the sound of running feet stopped her. All three of them turned to face the grand staircase just as four students thundered down into the main foyer. Weiss and Blake were near the back, both looking very grave, with Sun and...

Neptune skidded to a stop on the landing, jabbed a finger into the air, and shouted, "J'accuse!"

Weiss slapped his shoulder. He seemed to realize what he'd just done, went pink around the ears, and hid behind Sun.

Jacques went red again. _"What _is the meaning of this?" he roared. "I told you all to get _out!"_

Weiss held up an envelope. "I found this in your office."

He waved a hand. "Yes, yes, I'm sure you find that invoice _very _damning, but the adults are talking—"

"It's signed by Doctor Watts."

Everyone went quiet, at that. Peter signaled to Pepper as inconspicuously as he could, telling her to get ready in case Jacques made a run for it.

But he only folded his arms and said, "You broke into my office."

"You're working for him."

Jacques bristled. "I'm _funding _him, yes. He's a brilliant scientist, and I have every right to invest in people who I think will give me results."

"What kinds of results are those, exactly?"

He rolled his eyes. "If you've read that letter, and if you've learned _anything _from me, you know perfectly well."

"I want you to say it."

Their voices had been rising steadily—now there was a scuffling sound from outside, and Specter poked his head inside. Steele and Glacier followed suit soon after, and the rest of the Schnees were dragged over the threshold trying to keep them from further destroying the foyer.

Jacques spared them only a glance. "Very well," he said, his voice clear and crisp. "He will give me another elemental."

Dead silence. Confused, in the case of the newcomers. Horrified for everyone else.

"Now, if you're all quite finished tramping about in my house?" He gestured towards the door. "I believe we're done here. Unless you're planning to kidnap me? Kill me? No?"

His eyes swept over Winter, Whitley, and Weiss, each in turn. "Then _get out._ And don't expect any sympathy from me when you get yourselves arrested and your creatures put down."

Weiss took a step forward, and Winter opened her mouth to shout—but the only sound, in the end, was a soft whimper. Glacier had withdrawn his head until only one eye showed through the doorway. One paw was wrapped protectively around Whitley. He let out a quiet, betrayed, "Ock?"

Jacques didn't even look at him. "Take him, if you like. The first gravity egg will be mine, and that will serve until the Council take him back. I suspect he'll be much more manageable after that."

Peter didn't understand. No one did, at first—except for Specter, who reared up and smashed his shoulders against the top of the door frame. And Weiss, who let out a wordless snarl and launched herself at him.

Blake and Sun each caught one of her arms. Specter whimpered and backed up, his tail lashing, until Steele covered him with a wing. Horrified realization dawned on Winter's face. Her hand came down on the handle of her pistol and clenched there, white-knuckled. Ragnar's paw punched through a window, raining glass down on the marble tiles, and his growl shook the whole room.

It took too long for Peter to realize. Long after Glynda had stiffened up and hissed the most vicious curse she knew under her breath. After his students had clenched their fists and moved to block the way to Glacier. Even after little Oscar had started to look sick. It just wasn't in him to imagine a rider doing _that _to his own dragon.

Glacier cocked his head in confusion. He'd never seen those devices before. But Whitley, who'd only heard of them, wrapped his arms around the great dragon's neck and said, "I won't let you."

"I made you everything you are," Jacques sneered, "and you think you can steal from me. You'll regret that." He turned on his heel and swept back towards the stairs. It took the combined efforts of Blake, Sun, and Neptune to keep Weiss away from him as he strode past her, into the destroyed upper stories of the manor.

* * *

"I'll _kill _him!"

"Weiss."

_"Don't tell me to calm down, Winter!"_

"I'm not. I'm telling you that you're scaring him."

Glacier whimpered. Everyone was so angry, and he didn't understand why. Specter wouldn't come out from under Steele's wing, and Ragnar kept stomping his feet and sending ominous ripples through the ground.

The small Jacques was crying.

Glacier picked him up by the little handle on his coat and pulled him behind his wing. There they stayed while the others started loading onto the big flying metal box. He didn't really want to go back on it, but he would do it if it meant going back to the school.

In the meantime, he wanted to be alone. So Glacier took the little one and lay down behind the barn, where he and Snowflake used to play. There he could sing to him and lick away the tears.

Everything had gotten so confusing, like it always did when Jacques came. He nudged the little one, hoping that he would explain why he was crying.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I shouldn't be..."

Another nudge.

The small one looked up at him. "Do you... do you know about Penny?"

Penny was the metal thing that sometimes talked like a dragon, and sometimes like a rider. She had offered to translate for him, but he'd been too embarrassed and had run away. He cocked his head and barked.

"Well, they made more of Penny. Except not like her, because they're not alive. But they can... make dragons do things."

Glacier let out a confused yip. That just sounded like riders, to him.

"Father wants to give you one of those. So that you'd have to listen to him."

The little one still wasn't making any sense. He did listen to Jacques! Mostly.

A hand behind his jaw, scratching at his favorite spot. His eyes drifted halfway shut. "It would mean... if he told you to do something, like stay away from me, you'd have to do it."

Glacier pushed his snout against the small Jacques' chest. He didn't want the little ones to go away. "Nnn," he said. "No."

"No," the little one agreed. "He'll have to go through everyone else, first. Specter and Steele, and Weiss and Winter, and... me. We won't let him."

He curled his tail around himself. He didn't want Jacques and the little ones to fight...

"I won't let him." Heat crept into the small one's voice. He hugged Glacier fiercely around the neck, and hot tears landed on his scales. "Not ever. I'll f-fight him if I have to, I don't care if he hatched you. You're mine and I'm yours and I don't _want _another dragon."

Glacier whimpered. The words left a tight feeling in his chest, and he curled up around the small Jacques. Except, all of a sudden, he didn't seem so small. And he didn't sound like Jacques at all.

He held the human against his chest and nuzzled his hair. It still hurt, and maybe it would always hurt, but it was good. Much better than the lonely stall. Better, even, than those perfect hands.

"Lee," he rumbled, and shut his eyes.

* * *

It was cold outside. Willow hadn't brought a jacket, hadn't thought she'd wind up standing outside the now-destroyed front doors of the manor. Hadn't thought she'd see Weiss and Winter now, or Whitley ever again.

Was she dreaming? It seemed impossible, when a gust of wind picked up and she shivered. A nearby fire dragon noticed, and pressed its warm flank against her back. She shuddered. The blonde girl from Weiss' team patted its side.

But they were leaving, now. Filing one by one onto the dragon carrier. Willow beckoned her daughters to her, and threw her arms around them one last time. "Stay safe," she whispered.

They exchanged a guilty look.

"As safe as you can," Willow corrected herself, and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. She'd lost Whitley, and he'd come back. She couldn't take any more.

Or maybe she could. That wasn't the first time she'd thought she'd lost all she could stand.

She drifted away from the warmth of the dragon and towards the manor door. Hesitated. She'd wanted to say goodbye to Whitley...

A head poked out in front of her, blinking at her with familiar blue eyes. Glacier whined and prodded her with his nose. Willow put a shaky hand on his snout and said, "Thank you." She took another step. He fretted and pawed the ground.

"I'm sorry," Willow mumbled. "I have to..."

His ears drooped. His body flattened against the ground, and he whimpered pathetically.

"Glacier," Whitley sighed. "Leave her be."

She had to go home. Didn't she?

Had to return to the empty halls, the cold nights, the days spent in a fugue of alcohol and grief. She was spent. Useless.

Glacier butted his head against her once more, and stared at her with those fathomless eyes of his. She'd always thought they were fitting, for Jacques' dragon—deep enough to drown in. But they were warmer now than they'd been in decades, as if he'd done the impossible and put some of his pieces back together. Willow hugged him around the neck, trying not to break down again at the feeling of cool scales under her fingers.

Her feet left the ground.

All three of her children started talking at once. She heard, "No, Glacier!" and "Put her down!" and "Careful!" For an instant her arms strained with the effort of holding herself up, and she thought she might fall. But then he placed her gently on his back, just behind Whitley.

Her son pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm fairly sure that's illegal," he told the dragon, in that peculiar tone he'd picked up during his absence—the one that said he knew perfectly well that the dragon would do whatever he wanted anyway, and arguing with him was futile.

"I'm sure he'll make a case for kidnapping," Winter agreed.

Weiss put a hand on Glacier's flank. "Compared to everything else we're doing, I doubt it matters. The important thing is..."

Whitley twisted to look at Willow. "Do you want to come?"

She stared at him. "I... what?"

"He wants to bring you with us."

"Oh." She swayed, and might have fallen off if she hadn't steadied herself against Whitley's shoulders. Even though years had passed, it hurt to touch Glacier and remember who he wasn't. But somehow the sharp pain was intoxicating after spending all that time haunting her children's empty rooms like a ghost. It felt like waking up.

"Yes," she said, and hugged Whitley. "I think I'd like that."


	95. Gravity

**Hello again! This week, Harpy is not amused by the concept of airships and Gigas makes a friend.**

* * *

**95\. Gravity**

* * *

For a day that had started with a narrow escape from one of the awful metal machines, Harpy thought it was turning out surprisingly well. It was... pleasant, to be around Twiggy without fighting. She was a lot like the other Beacon dragons. Softer, somehow, than anyone else she'd ever met.

"The transports really aren't so bad," Twiggy said, as they trotted along between Ao Guang and Freya. "They don't smell very nice, but there's more space than you'd think."

Harpy bared her teeth. "Flying is better."

"But the Council have guns," Freya reminded her.

"Flying is better."

Guang, apparently bored by the debate, pounced on Twiggy and tackled her to the ground. Harpy edged away—he was nice, and he played with Gigas, but she didn't like his smell. Too much like the place Pyrrha had called the ocean, where it seemed like the whole world had turned to water. Harbinger had been like that, too. All dampness. She supposed she'd get used to it eventually, since he wasn't actually wet to the touch.

She had to get used to it, she reminded herself. For Pyrrha.

Freya was easier. She slept almost as much as Brand did, and would probably sleep even more if it wasn't for how much energy her rider had. Once Harpy had even seen Gigas curled up under one of her wings.

Her tail twitched nervously. They were going to see him, now, and she'd decided to finally try and talk to him. Talking had worked with Twiggy, after all.

He was asleep in his stall when they got there. The little door the riders had put in had gotten too small for him, and they couldn't make it bigger without letting the Lieutenant through, too. Pyrrha had to unlock the door and let him out. He came slowly, his tail dragging behind him, and wouldn't look at them.

Ao Guang gave him a nudge and a playful lick. Twiggy tried to tempt him out by batting him gently with one paw. Freya yawned and said, "You can come back and sleep whenever you want. We'll open the door for you."

But it was only when the Lieutenant patted him on the back and said, "Go on," that he finally ambled outside. He squinted in the sunshine and curled up in a ball. It took the combined efforts of Twiggy and Guang to coax him back to his feet and out onto the grounds.

Harpy lost the tail game for the first time since she'd first learned it—she was too distracted trying to think of what to say to Gigas. Talking was... hard.

He seemed to get a little life back when Guang started play-wrestling with him, and a little more when Twiggy let him ride on her back while she raced around the field. But eventually he retreated from the action, his chest heaving.

Harpy approached him. He looked up at her, his violet eyes wide, his neck extending towards her until he remembered that he was supposed to be angry and looked away. She sat next to him and tentatively wound her tail around him.

"Sorry," she said.

He pawed at her tail. "Why don't you like the Lieutenant?"

Her ears went back, and she shuffled her front paws in discomfort. "Have you seen the big tent?"

Twiggy, who was playing with Freya a few feet away, turned towards them. "Um," she said tentatively, like she was afraid of starting an argument. "Isn't he a little too young for that?"

Gigas let out an indignant twang. "I fought all of you!" he burst out. "I'm not a little hatchling anymore!"

Harpy snorted. She wasn't even half a year old, and he barely came up to the top of her forelegs.

"I'm not!"

"Harpy?" Twiggy's tail started to twitch nervously.

"I was smaller. Better to know."

"Know _what?" _Gigas whined.

"They make hatchlings there," Harpy explained. "Some live. You, Flux, Harbinger. Me. Many more die."

His ears flattened. "What's that got to do with the Lieutenant?"

"He helps. Kills many to have us. We're... tools. Used. Bad." Harpy looked away, off into the distance where the shadow of Atlas had fallen across the tundra. She could just see a hint of trees on the horizon.

"I'm not a tool." Gigas put his paws up on her side. "And Ursan doesn't do that!"

She sighed. "I can't... tell. Have to see."

"You can't hurt him." Gigas snorted mulishly and bit her to get her attention again. He already had it—it was just hard to look at him while she was talking about this.

"...I won't," she promised. "Not here. Only if he hurts more eggs."

"Not ever!"

"No." Harpy's tail started to twitch. "Won't let them hurt."

"But..." Gigas whined and butted his head against her legs. "I don't want to have to hate you."

She put a paw down on his back. "You don't."

"But—but I have to if you hurt him."

Harpy didn't know what to say to that.

Twiggy poked her head between them, her ears twitching hesitantly. "How about... you promise to help keep the Lieutenant from hurting any eggs. And Harpy can promise not to hurt him, even if she has to stop him?"

Harpy considered that. "He's smaller now," she decided. "Easier not to hurt."

"Oh." Gigas perked up. "Okay! If there really is a bad tent, we'll just tell them to get rid of it and then we won't have to fight."

Twiggy winced. Harpy just sighed and tugged him a little closer, tucked in safe against her flank.

"And you have to promise the same thing about Sienna."

Even Guang and Freya looked around at that. Twiggy froze with one paw in the air, her eyes wide.

"Harpy?" Gigas prodded her with his nose.

"...No." She moved away from him. "No. Won't hurt Sienna."

"Okay! Then we can get Flux and Harbinger and... um... I guess Harbinger would want us to be nice to Corsac, even if he's kind of mean. And Fennac is way too nice to hurt eggs! And Hazel isn't Brand's rider but he likes him, so we can't hurt him either."

Harpy's ears drooped.

"Try," she promised, and nuzzled little Gigas between the ears.

* * *

May lay on her back on the cot someone had dragged into her cell, listening dully to the sound of dragons playing outside. The stall smelled like dragons, too. There was no escaping it.

She turned on her side and buried her head in her arms. Would she be out there with Flurry right now, if she'd gotten into Beacon instead? But he'd been a Shade egg. He would have gone to someone else, and probably ended up in the pits.

Was there _anything _she could have done to save them? Or was she just useless?

She stuck a fingernail into her mouth, even though it was already bitten to the quick. The din outside peaked as the crowd of dragons entered the barn. There was a creak and a frenzy of barking as the stall next door opened, and its occupant bolted inside to greet his rider. May knew next to nothing about him, except that his voice made her think he must be the size of a grizzly bear, but she envied him.

Pain flared up in her finger. She swore and shook it, scattering a couple drops of blood on the floor. There was a confused twang from the other stall. Then a scrabbling sound against the wall.

"Gigas," the man sighed. "Leave it. It's just the human girl."

A thump. Then silence... a quiet rattling. May got to her feet and stared at the wall. Could he get in? There was a grate there, for dragons to communicate with one another, but the lever to open it was at the top of the wall, out of reach for a dragonet who couldn't fly.

"Gigas?" A scraping sound and another thud. "What the hell are you...?"

_Click._

May jumped as the grate slammed open. Then a thick, blocky snout poked inside, and Gigas barked a greeting.

"Hi," she said, still slightly stunned. She glanced at the lever again. Maybe it was lower in the other stalls?

He twanged and, by the sound of it, wagged his tail. May knelt down to pet him, and he licked her bleeding finger. "Thanks," she choked out. Gigas yelped in alarm as the first tears started to fall. He squirmed, like he was trying to push his head further inside.

"No!" May and the big man blurted at the same time. He stopped. Whined.

"You'll get stuck," his rider grunted.

"I'm fine," she lied, but she bent a little closer to let him lick her face.

* * *

It would be a severe understatement to say that Roman didn't want to go back. He'd made his position very clear by sputtering and signing more and more aggressively—his version of shouting. Neo rolled her eyes and repeated herself for the third time.

"I told you, we're wanted by the Council. And they just _lost _the fight in Atlas. We already helped Ironwood's people once, I don't think it'll be that hard to wheedle a pardon out of him after this is all over."

"And if they lose—"

Neo smacked his hands, cutting him off mid-sentence. "If they lose, how long do you think it'll take for one of them to mention us by name? And once the Council cracks down, they'll have plenty of time to look for us. Not taking a side really isn't an option."

Roman groaned. "Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?" he said—out loud, this time. When he was annoyed enough he sometimes started fumbling signs. Probably because his instinct when he was irritated was to wave his arms around in frustration, like he was doing now.

"More or less dangerous than having the Council's full attention on all the stragglers who got away? They need to squash this _hard _if they want to stay in power afterward."

"...I hate when you're right."

She put on a sympathetic pout. "Life must be so hard for you."

That had been back when the incident at Atlas Dragonry was all over the news, a few days ago. It had taken that long to make their way back since, ironically, it was way slower traveling with a dragon than without, unless you were way out in the wilds. It didn't help that Roman had never tried to sneak around with one before. He still managed to find a shop owner up in Mantle who owed him a favor, and let them stow away in a shipment of flour for an absurd amount of lien. Once they were in the shadow of the floating city, they just needed to get aboard a shuttle without anyone noticing.

...Well, without anyone who wasn't _on _the shuttle noticing. The rest was probably a lost cause. So they waited until the middle of the night, and Neo slipped Whisper in through the back. She emerged in a very quiet passenger car.

Quiet, but not quite empty.

"It's the rogues!" someone whispered to his neighbor. A man near the back edged towards the door, only to freeze when Neo wagged a finger at him. And an old woman sighed as though the conductor had just said there would be a small traffic delay.

"Get on with it," she grumbled, waving a cane at them. "The pilot's up front. I'll fly you if he won't." She was wearing what looked like a top-of-the-line pair of prosthetic eyes and a grin that even Neo wanted nothing to do with.

Fortunately Roman could fly a shuttle, and respond to the air chatter well enough that no one thought to raise the alarm. They landed a few blocks away from the dragonry and absconded into the night. From there it was mostly just a matter of moving quickly. There was never a time when all of Atlas was asleep, and they hadn't even gone a full block before they could hear police sirens and the leathery snap of dragon wings in the distance. The Council had upped security on the dragonry to a truly absurd degree... but they apparently still hadn't tried another raid.

Interesting.

Whisper carried them the last block, up and over the walls of the school. She fluttered her wings, yawned, and started plodding towards the school itself. It didn't take very long before they were spotted—Ragnar himself poked his head up from behind one of the buildings and let out a bellow.

"Hello there!" Roman called out, waving his hat over his head. "Is Jimmy home?"

* * *

The wind and water hybrid was dead. Watts still wasn't sure why—maybe some defect he hadn't noticed initially, or just an infection from its burned paws. It probably wouldn't have been able to carry him anyway, but it had still been his best chance among the hybrids.

He'd assumed he'd be able to simply fly out on one of the pit dragons, and hadn't worried. And yet somehow the creatures had managed to throw a wrench in the works without being able to so much as twitch their blasted tails. They were growing increasingly erratic and unreliable—but not due to any fault in their programming. No, the problem was entirely physical.

"Damn you," he hissed under his breath, as Dusk retched up its meal for the third time in a row. Half the pit dragons had what _looked _an awful lot like a draconic version of the flu, complete with horrifying quantities of phlegm. They were losing weight at an alarming rate, and a few had developed odd twitches that were, as far as he could tell, completely involuntary.

Perhaps, given time, he could fine-tune the devices so that they could regulate digestion and the sorts of movements that were normally unconscious. Watts did not have time.

"Again?"

He tried not to jump too obviously. Tyrian had crept up behind him—the man had an alarming habit of doing just that, and to make it even worse his hybrid's eyes glowed in the dark. He stroked Dusk's neck and cooed softly.

Watts cleared his throat stiffly. "If you'll excuse me. I have another attempt at feeding to make."

"Hm." Tyrian's eyes flashed. "You do _love _your machines. Almost as much as I love my goddess." Ozone chirped and bumped its head against his shins.

Oh, hell. The last thing Watts wanted was a _conversation _with _Tyrian._

"Yes, yes." He tried to chivy the man away from Dusk.

A toothy grin flashed in the growing dark. "You like to dissect the things you love."

Watts chose not to respond to that. This was apparently the incorrect move—Tyrian leaned in to whisper in his ear, "I prefer to dissect the things I hate."

And with that, and an unsettling giggle, he was off into the dark. Watts almost relaxed, until a distant yellow glint warned him that Tyrian might well still be watching. He swore again, under his breath, and glared at the shivering pit dragon.

He could probably still ride it... but he wanted something fast _and _reliable. It would be one thing to lose a few dragons to Cinder's inevitable chase, but Watts himself wasn't so expendable.

Letting out a frustrated huff, Watts massaged his temples. The enormous wind dragon had been one of his best options for flight, but he was starting to think he'd have better luck with one of the younger ones. Riptide was having a similar problem with keeping food down, but Tallow and Pearl were both still in decent health. It seemed that the younger the dragon was when it was introduced to the devices, the better it held up. He hadn't had any such problems in his hybrids.

He found Tallow on the other side of the camp, crouched on top of a small heap of rocks, its eyes closed. It was still thinner than he'd like, but he could hardly afford to be picky. Watts glanced over his shoulder and, when neither he nor the pit dragon detected anything amiss, withdrew a little vial from one of his sleeves. It cast a cherry red glow onto the forest floor.

"Desperate times," he muttered, and injected the fire dragon.

After all, if this didn't work, there was always Pearl.


	96. Job Opportunity

**Hello, and happy Friday folks! This chapter, Ilia remembers something important.**

* * *

**96\. Job Opportunity**

* * *

"Hey."

Ruby looked up and tried to muster a smile for Yang. It didn't work.

The next thing she knew, she felt warm and safe and slightly suffocated—like she always did when Yang hugged her. Ruby hugged back and buried her face in her sister's shoulder.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"Nah." Yang ruffled her hair. "Not allowed. You can be sad, but I'm not letting you be sorry when you didn't do anything wrong."

Ruby sniffled and pulled away. Jade was still in the same place—curled up on her side, her head sprawled on the floor of her demolished stall, her chest moving slowly up and down. Rudder had fallen asleep, too, his tail twined with hers. Justice was awake, but only just. He still watched her warily even though his eyes were drooping shut. She should probably leave soon, to give him a chance to rest.

She was used to those two staying with Jade, and Storm's warm and solid presence at her back. She was _not _used to Whisper sitting in the corner, her tail around her feet, silently watching over them. Not that she was complaining—it seemed to help Jade to have all of her siblings there. It was enough to make it worth it for everyone else to have Torchwick around, which meant a lot considering how much he annoyed Winter and General Ironwood.

But nothing would make this all better. Nothing could fix it, except having Emerald back.

"She'd be okay if she came with us," she whispered, hugging her arms around her knees. "I just—I was scared that if we stayed too long Cinder would find out and attack us, and somebody would get hurt, and then _that _would be all my fault, but if I'd just talked to her then maybe—"

Storm cut her off by nuzzling into her side, crooning softly.

"She made her choice," said Yang. "It sucks, but you couldn't make her leave with you. This _isn't _your fault."

Ruby wiped her eyes. "I know."

"I know you know." Yang kissed the top of her head. "I'm still gonna keep reminding you.

* * *

Ilia had been avoiding Blake. Not because she was angry—she still was, a little, but the real problem was that she wasn't angry enough to act normal anymore. It felt too much like it used to between them, and that... it hurt. She wasn't sure she trusted herself to be alone with her. But it wouldn't be right to let her go to the Schnee manor and not at least check to make sure she was okay afterwards. So, for the first time in a while, she deliberately went looking for Blake.

She wasn't near Glacier, thank the gods. He put his hackles up at her when she checked, as he did every time she came within his sight. Someone must have told him where she'd come from, maybe Whitley or one of the other Schnees. Or maybe he just had something in common with his rider.

Blake wasn't with Sun. He waved to Ilia from where he stood, poking around in Huo's mouth. It wasn't clear why, and she didn't ask. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. That wasn't somewhere she'd be willing to put her hand, let alone most of her upper body. Neptune and Nymph didn't seem concerned, so she probably didn't need to be either.

Finally, she got up the courage to enter the earth barn. Not the one with Jade in it, which was probably for the best. Seeing her and Rudder always felt like a reminder of everything Ilia had messed up with Justice. But she did have to pass the stall with Gigas and the Lieutenant inside, walking quickly even though there was no way for him to tell that it was her there.

Gigas could, though, and he poked his head through the little door could no longer fit his entire body. He croaked and whined pathetically until she stopped to pet him. There was only cold silence from the Lieutenant inside.

Ilia approached Pit's stall cautiously. Just when she was about to open the door, she heard voices inside.

"It wasn't _ideal, _but at least we got what we came for." There she was—the other reason she'd been avoiding Blake lately.

"Did we?" Blake's boots crunched on hay as she paced back and forth. "We know _how _she did it, but we still can't prove it was her. The only solid evidence we have is for a connection between Watts and your dad, and I hate to say it but most of the students following her won't care."

"I didn't think they'd have done it in the labs. It doesn't take a genius to notice all the cameras, and I have a hard time believing my father knows Watts is in league with Cinder. He's too attached to the Council. He certainly wouldn't let her sabotage eggs, it's too much risk for too little reward. Even if he does get a gravity dragon out of it."

"So what was the point of that?" Blake burst out.

"We have video confirming no one got into the labs without him knowing, so we know we need to look at someone getting into the Dragonries. And we know about the connection to Watts—it's possible Cinder had him contact father to give them a way in, somehow."

"But that's not _proof."_

"Blake." Ilia bristled at the sharp tone, but it softened almost immediately. "What's wrong? You knew it wasn't going to be that easy. _Especially _not with him involved."

"I know! It's just... how many students are out there working for her _right now, _when she was the one who poisoned their dragons? They're _desperate, _Weiss. What if they're hurting people, or worse, thinking they don't have a choice? And then they'll find out that this whole time they were just being used so Cinder could get her revenge."

Pit rumbled, low and reassuring. Ilia bit her lip and hesitated. She really shouldn't be listening to this, but...

The click of heels on the stall floor, and a rustle of cloth. "I imagine... they'd have to live with a lot of guilt. Even though they did everything they could to make things better."

Blake's breathing hitched, then steadied. Ilia bit down too hard tasted blood.

"We'll figure something out," Weiss said—all the haughty confidence now back in her voice. "Cinder's hardly an infallible genius. She's made a mistake somewhere, all we have to do is find it."

"It's not us we're trying to convince. I... I don't think you understand how blinded people can get, when they're being hunted like that. When it's always you and them against the world, it... it's hard to accept that you might have been wrong to trust someone, even if it's staring you in the face."

It took a while for Weiss to respond. When she did, she didn't quite manage to sound as unconcerned as before. "Cinder has to trust people, too. And she brought us to the valley, so she can obviously make mistakes.

Ilia froze. She remembered a forest under the stars, and a woman who looked a little bit like Blake standing _much _too close.

"We just need to find one of the people who injected the glycinamide in the first place, and..."

"And what? They _know _what she's done, and they don't care. There's no reasoning with someone like that. Besides, they're not going to take one person's word for it. We need documentation, video, _something."_

"We'll figure it out."

"We don't have _time! _You heard what Mercury told the General, she's already tried to do it again! Next time it won't be him and Emerald making that call."

Pit whined. Blake cursed softly and said, "Sorry. Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

Ilia reached out. Hesitated. How was she supposed to go in there now, when they'd know she'd been listening? Maybe if she went back later...

"I get that it's hard. I'm... not the best at being patient, either. But this is _not _your fault, understand? We're doing the best we can."

It was easier not to hate Weiss when she acted like a stuck-up bitch.

"I know." Blake's voice was horribly flat. "I just don't know how much longer I can take this."

_Damn it._

Ilia screwed up her courage and knocked. There was a yelp from Weiss, and she tried not to notice how close the two of them were standing when she opened the door.

Blake stared at her. "Ilia?"

"Cinder offered me a place," she said, without meeting either of their eyes. She looked at Pit, instead—he had his head cocked curiously to one side. "Working for her, I mean. I'd forgotten about it."

"Were you spying on us?!" Weiss burst out. "What is _wrong _with—"

"Just listen!" Ilia snapped. "I think I can help."

Blake's ears, which had gone flat against her hair, slowly started to perk up. "Wait. Do you mean...?"

"I can contact her, she gave me her scroll ID. And if most of her followers can't be trusted to find out about her sabotaging the eggs... I _am _pretty good at infiltration. She might ask me, and—"

"You could record the whole thing." Blake bolted for the door, and stopped with one foot still in Pit's stall. She looked over her shoulder and shouted, "Come on! We need to get Ironwood, _now."_

* * *

Mercury stayed quiet when Ruby came to knock on his door, and explained to him that they had a lead. He stayed quiet all the way to General Ironwood's office, and through Ilia's explanation of Cinder's offer. He even managed to keep himself calm while they hashed out a plan for her to call Cinder—but he had to say _something, _then.

"I have to be there," he said, gripping the edge of Ironwood's desk. "When you call. I have to..."

He could see them hesitating. "Winter will be with her," Ironwood said, "but I don't think it's a good idea to have any more people than necessary. Any noise might tip her off."

"I know how she works," he blurted. "I can help."

"Mercury—"

"Where are you gonna call her?" he demanded. "In here? She'll ask for video—she always does that when she thinks someone might be lying to her."

Ironwood grimaced. "That does help, but I really think you should leave this to us."

"Because you think I'm a spy or some shit."

"No. You're too close to this."

Mercury looked down. "I can keep it together. I'm not fucking stupid."

"I never said you were. I don't want _anyone _there for the call that doesn't need to be. I'm not even going to be there. And we're all going to listen to the recording afterwards—all I'm asking is for a little patience. If we're very lucky, we'll have all the proof we need in fifteen minutes."

They weren't.

Cinder did indeed ask to switch to video. She didn't always do that—Emerald and Mercury had been able to just use voice for the last few years they'd worked with her, most of the time—but she liked to be able to see people's faces and tells. He was tense while they reviewed the scroll call, listening for any hint that Cinder had noticed something wrong.

"Where are you right now?"

Ilia had gone out to the small forest on the grounds to make the call. Her eyes flicked slightly to the left, towards where Winter must have been standing. "Vale," she said. "I left the White Fang."

"Interesting."

"Not really. They thought I was sabotaging them, and I didn't really want to stick around for the debate."

Cinder hummed. Mercury's fists clenched again, reflexively, and his teeth ground together. Then he jumped—Ruby had reached out and squeezed his hand. He pulled it away and stuck it in his pocket.

"You have good timing. An associate of mine could use some assistance—your Justice can carry two now, yes?"

Ilia nodded.

"Pick him up at the coordinates I send you. He'll explain the rest when you get there."

"Shit," Mercury muttered, as the recording ended.

Ironwood sighed. "She's smart enough not to say anything incriminating over the phone. That means we're going to have to figure out how to get you there."

"Um." Ilia started to look much more nervous. "I don't know..."

"We're not letting her go alone, are we?" Blake blurted out. "We have no idea who she's even meeting."

Mercury made a face. "I've got a pretty good idea, actually. His name's Tyrian. Scorpion faunus, hybrid dragonet, lots of screws loose."

Ruby glanced at her teammates. "Do you know if he's dangerous? We've never really seen him fight."

"You're gonna want backup. He'd been working for Cinder without a dragon for a while, and he was the first to get a hybrid egg. Dangerous is probably underselling it."

They made the mistake of continuing their planning while Ilia went to get Justice. Jade only needed to hear a few snatches of the conversation before she was barking up a storm, and absolutely refusing to let the fire dragon go without her. And Rudder wouldn't let either of them go alone, which meant that Whisper wanted to come along, and it was all Mercury could do not to burst out laughing at the sour look on Winter's face. Somehow, he didn't think he, Ilia, and Neo were the trustworthy crack team she would have chosen.

Ironwood took one look at Jade and seemed to realize there would be no arguing with her. "We'll get you set up with a wire," he told Ilia. "And remember, you're _not _there to capture him. You get him to say something incriminating and then you get out. Understood?"

Ilia nodded and turned a pale, sickly gray.

* * *

"Miss Rose?"

Storm and her rider both stopped. She flicked her tail nervously as General Ironwood approached them.

"Would you stay behind for a moment? I'd like a word."

They fidgeted as they waited for all the others to leave—though Fang had to nudge Yang with his nose, and it took a moment for Rudder to persuade Jade. The General's eyes followed the earth dragon as she walked away.

"I'd like you to go with them," he said.

Storm's ears flattened. She couldn't fly—so he wasn't talking to her.

Ruby frowned. "You don't trust them?"

"No. No, that's not it. They've all taken risks to help us." He rubbed his chin, his fingers rasping against stubble. "I want you to keep an eye on Jade. It would be unfair to expect her to keep a clear head through all this. Mercury will be there, but I'd rather have as many people around to talk her down as I can."

"I don't know if she'll want me to..."

"We can't force her to take you," he agreed reluctantly. "But she knows you. I think she will."

"I mean..." Ruby hesitated. "I'd love to help Jade. I just don't really get why you want me there so badly when Mercury will be with her too. She knows him better than me."

The General put a hand on her shoulder. "I've heard about what you did for Mudslide. And for Ragnar."

"Um," Ruby squeaked, her ears going red. "I mean, it wasn't like... I just talked to her, and I—I couldn't let him—!"

Ironwood actually smiled. "Don't be modest. You have a gift, Miss Rose. Be proud of it."

Ruby made an incoherent noise and hid her face in Storm's neck. She draped a foreleg over her rider and tried not to hope that Jade would say no.

She didn't. She wasn't happy about it, either, but she bobbed her head and said, "Fine. Can we go now?" And they definitely needed to, since Ilia had said she was in Vale and the place she was supposed to pick up Tyrian was a long way away. They'd need to take the dragon carrier again, since it was faster, but hopefully without drawing too much attention from the Council.

The lack of response from them was getting creepy.

Storm pretended not to mind while they were saying goodbye. She still had to keep licking away tears, and eventually Yang gently nudged Ruby away. "It's only for a day," her rider promised, before she went away with Jade.

_I'm confused,_ Penny said. _Why won't you tell her you don't want her to go?_

Storm sighed and walked away. _Because she has to. And if I say I don't want her to she might leave Jade alone, or she'll still go but she'll feel bad about it and it'll be all my fault._

_Oh._

There was silence. Then Penny said, _Is that why you don't like me seeing how you feel about the mech?_

Sometimes Storm missed the days when Penny didn't pick up on stuff like that.

_It's fine,_ she insisted.

_Why don't you talk to Fang and Pit and Specter? They're all still here._

Storm's ears drooped. _I can't go because I can't fly, _she reminded Penny. _I don't want to make Specter feel guilty again._

_I thought it wasn't his fault?_

_It wasn't, but sometimes he feels bad anyway._

Penny didn't respond to that—it seemed like Storm had finally said something so confusing she'd need some time to figure it out.

She wandered for an hour or so before slinking into the wind barns, thinking she'd just try and fall asleep. Maybe she could nap until Ruby was back, and it would feel like she hadn't left at all. Freya could probably pull that off. Only when she went in, she bumped nose-first into Tempest.

"Hello little one," Tempest said, nuzzling against her side. "I heard about what happened. How are you feeling?"

Storm's ears flattened, and she looked away. Tempest was one of the last people she wanted to talk to right now. "I'm fine. It's only for a day."

Tempest hummed. "Being apart is hard. Even for only a day."

She whined and hid her face under her wing. "I'm sorry," she mumbled.

The older dragon let out a confused snort. "Sorry? What could you have to be sorry for?"

Storm curled her tail around herself and squeezed, as if she could keep the words in that way. "I shouldn't be like this. It's not fair to be upset that she's going away for a day when—and now you're trying to make _me _feel better and—and I was mad at Jade even though it's not her f-fault and—!"

Somewhere above her, there was a great sigh. Tempest curled around her, a wing draping over her head like a gigantic blanket. "You know Ruby reminds me of her mother. Even more, now that I've seen her with you."

She whimpered.

"That's how I know you're not being replaced. Not ever."

"I know!" Storm said quickly.

Another hum. This time Storm could feel it all around her, and she relaxed without even meaning to. "We can be afraid sometimes, even when we know we're safe. There's nothing wrong with that. Feelings... often don't make much sense."

Storm thought of Specter, who still tripped over himself to help whenever she asked for something.

"It's okay to hurt. And you're never a burden, _especially _not to me." Tempest nuzzled her side. "When Summer was gone... I stayed for Ruby and Yang, because they needed me. I love them, and I love you. That means I want to be there for you. Always."

In the end, Storm did fall asleep in the wind barn—right there at the entrance, huddled under Tempest's wing.


	97. Rotten Eggs

**Hello again! I come bearing Schnee family baggage, Tyrian being Tyrian, and Ozone trying really, really hard to be Ozone.**

* * *

**97\. Rotten Eggs**

* * *

Willow tipped her head back, grimaced, and swallowed. The burn went all the way down her throat and pooled in her stomach, leaving a sick churning feeling behind.

Qrow Branwen, she had recently discovered, had awful taste.

Winter didn't like it. Neither did James. He hadn't said anything, but she had seen it clear as day on his face. She'd been clear with them, though—she couldn't stop now, not while she was surrounded by dragons. It hurt like being torn apart, and she could already feel herself slipping. She'd return to the manor in a heartbeat rather than let herself fall back to that place, that all-consuming emptiness that had paralyzed her as Jacques got to work molding their children.

Branwen had cleared his throat and, without looking at her or anyone else, extended a hand with a metal flask dangling from a leather cord. She'd taken it without much thought, because it hurt too much to wonder at the way his dragon had perked up at the gesture. She would run out eventually, of course, and then she'd start in on the much finer scotch James kept for special occasions. But somehow it felt important to drink the swill first.

She'd taken three swallows today. The first when she woke up that morning, to fortify her before she spoke to Glacier. The second to give her enough courage to face Steele. Now, Specter was finally alone.

Willow approached his stall slowly, forcing herself along step by step. She'd thought it would get easier, and in a way it had—he was rather less intimidating than Steele. But the other two had left her raw, and she wasn't sure she could do this without losing her grip.

If she didn't do it now, she never would.

She opened the door and said, "Hello." He picked his head up, startled, the tail of a frozen tuna sticking out of his mouth. There was a heap of frozen fish between his forelegs. His eyes reminded her of Glacier's—like windows to the place she was trying so hard not to go.

Specter swallowed the tuna in one massive bite, then sheepishly wiped fish scales off his muzzle. "Lo."

Willow stepped closer. It took a second to make herself speak, and when she did the words came out stiff and, to her ears, horribly insincere. "I'd like to thank you."

He whistled and cocked his head to one side, leaning in a little to get a better look at her. A shiver went through her.

"Thank you," she said again. It sounded only a little better. "For keeping Weiss safe."

That seemed to clear up the confusion. Specter bobbed his head and said, "Ice gud."

"I love her. I do." Willow looked down. "But I can't love her like you do, anymore. So... please. Don't leave her alone."

Specter let out a low whine—one that didn't quite hide the sharp intake of breath from somewhere behind him. Willow tensed. She stepped around the ice dragon's bulk, hoping against hope that it wasn't Weiss. And, well, she really ought to have been more careful what she wished for.

"Sorry," blurted her daughter's faunus teammate. "I didn't realize you were here."

Instinctively, Willow stepped closer to Specter. "How long have you been standing there?" she demanded.

Blake's ears went flat, just like dragons' sometimes did. "I was just here to get Specter. I didn't mean to overhear." She hesitated, like she was struggling not to say something. "And I—I don't want to overstep, but... I don't think that's true."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't think being hurt means you're broken. Or that being broken means you can't love anymore."

"Thank you for your insight," she snapped. Blake flinched back, looking wounded—as if the response hadn't been warranted. Maybe she thought Willow didn't know.

No one had _told _her, of course. No one wanted to upset her. But it hadn't taken long to notice the way everyone was very careful to avoid talking about Ilia in front of her. She'd asked Whitley point blank, and he'd confirmed it. One of _them, _living in the Dragonry without so much as a locked door to keep her away. And when she'd asked _why, _she'd learned that it was because Blake had defended her.

Anger felt strange after all these years. Strange, and good.

"I was just trying to help."

"Staying away from me would be a better start," Willow said coldly. "And if you _really _wanted to help, you could stay away from my family, too."

She was so caught up in the feeling, the spark in her gut warming her right to her toes, that she didn't notice Specter moving until he'd stepped between them. Willow waited for him to turn away from her, towards the stranger... but he didn't. He hissed at her and said, "Nno."

Willow's mouth fell open. "I—"

"Lake gud." Specter craned his neck to lick the faunus. "Sstay."

"I know," Blake mumbled. "I wasn't going to..."

He snorted, apparently satisfied, and went back to eating his fish.

Willow stumbled back to the stall Glacier slept in, the flask in her pocket now empty. He picked his head up when she entered and let out a questioning chirp.

"S'fine," she slurred. "Go back to sleep."

Whitley was curled up in the crook of his foreleg, and didn't stir when she sat down. She wasn't even sure why she'd come—except that she wanted an ice dragon to look at her like she wasn't a stranger.

He gathered her up with his free paw, tucking her against him and beside her son. Whitley sighed in his sleep. Willow thought that would be it—a hug from a dragon to keep her sleepless for the next few nights.

Then Glacier started to sing.

She recognized the tune in an instant. "No," she whispered, more harshly than she'd meant to. But Glacier didn't understand, or didn't want to listen, and the ripple of the song lodged itself in her chest like the blade of a knife.

Snowflake had liked to imitate waterfalls, when they traveled up north in the tundra. The sound of glacier runoff as it flowed under layers of ice. Clean and bright and achingly cold. She'd hummed it to her children as a lullaby before—

Willow tried to stay quiet, at least. But then she remembered that Snowflake had never taught him that, he'd been too busy playing outside in the snow, and it hadn't been her, either. Weiss must have sung to him. And then she made a noise that hardly even sounded human, and Whitley woke with a start.

He sat there, stiff and silent, while she wiped frantically at her eyes. Then, gingerly, as if he wasn't entirely sure he was doing it right, he put an arm around her. She leaned into his chest, marveling at the quiet strength of him. Where had he come from, this broad-shouldered young man who smelled like sweat and dragons?

She supposed it didn't matter. Willow was just grateful that he'd turned out nothing like his parents.

* * *

Steele watched Willow moving through the water barn—first slowly, in the direction of Specter's stall. Then quickly, her head low, on her way out. That time Winter was with him when she passed, back from another meeting with the General.

"What's she doing?"

"Tank 'oo," Steele replied. Winter's brow furrowed in confusion. "Lo ssaid tank 'oo."

"She talked to you too?"

He nodded.

Winter sighed and sat down beside him, leaning into his flank. Steele curled around her. "Did she say what prompted the thanks?"

"Win ssafe."

"I see."

Steele glanced at her hands. Sure enough, his rider was clenching her fists until they shook, and her shoulders had gone rigid. He nudged her with his nose until some of the tension went away. "Mad?"

"No."

Steele huffed and shifted so that he could look directly at her. She glanced at his face, then away, then back again. "I'm not angry. That would be ridiculous. I'm just... frustrated, that she's decided to pull herself together _now."_

He hummed, still unconvinced.

"I'm _not _angry."

She sounded angry.

"I know it's been hard for her!" Winter burst out. "I can only imagine—and I'd really rather _not _imagine—but she wasn't exactly a pillar of stability before that, either. And it's _great _if she wants to start making amends. I'm glad."

Steele gave her a skeptical look.

Winter turned away, and reached up to scratch under his chin. "She was right to thank you. All of you. Glacier certainly did more to raise Whitley than she did." She grimaced. "I didn't—I shouldn't be so bitter about it."

"Talk more," Steele said. "Gud."

"It's not." Winter scowled. "It doesn't matter. I don't want or need her approval, and I didn't do any of it so someone would pat me on the back for it." The scratching under his chin stopped as she gestured agitatedly with both hands. "And I _know_ I wasn't what they needed either, I know I left and I messed up and I don't deserve... but how was I supposed to know what I was doing?"

She stopped. Seemed to realize for the first time that she was breathing hard, and that she'd run a hand through her hair so violently that she'd knocked the bun askew. "Never mind," she muttered.

"Nno." Steele licked her face. "Win gud. Win try."

She took a deep breath. Got to her feet. Redid the bun, and straightened her uniform jacket. "Come on," she said, her voice crisp and calm. "We need to get some practice in."

* * *

Justice was starting to hate dragon carriers. This one was small, too—it had barely enough room for the four of them and their riders. At least Ilia was with him, and of all the students that could have come along, he supposed that Ruby was better than most.

But it was dim in the hold, and he was bored—once the initial takeoff was over, and there was no more risk of the Council trying to shoot them down, there wasn't really much for them to do. There was a lot of turbulence for a while—according to Mercury, who had gone to ask the pilot, some of the Flight Squad loyal to the Council had tried to tail them.

Once that was over, though, they were just sitting there. Not really looking at one another. In total silence. Finally Justice couldn't stand it anymore. "What's Tyrian like?" he asked.

Whisper's head picked up. She glanced at Neo, then at Ilia, as if to say, _Aren't you going to stop this?_

Ilia caught the look. "We need to let them talk," she said. "It's not good for them, otherwise."

Neo shrugged. Mercury might not have even heard—he was staring into space, as if he could see through the craft and all the way out to where the meeting was happening.

Jade didn't move from where she sat, right in front of the doors, her tail twitching with readiness. "I don't want to talk."

"I do," Rudder admitted.

Whisper yawned and said, "He's creepy."

Rudder stared at her. "Huh?"

"He asked what Tyrian's like. He's creepy."

They chatted for the rest of the hour-long airship ride to the tip of Solitas. It was... nice, Justice supposed, but odd. As if he was meeting complete strangers. Gigas and Flux and Harbinger, and even Harpy, felt more like siblings in some ways than they did. He finally got his wish, to be able to actually talk to Rudder, and he kept catching himself wishing Flux was there to trip over his paws and shock him.

Then the airship finally landed, and it was time for them to separate. The others followed after Justice on foot—Ilia had a thin metal device hidden under her shirt, to record everything she head, and it also sent a signal to Ruby's scroll telling them where she was. They were too close now to risk flying, not until Justice and Ilia were a little ways ahead of them.

The meeting place itself was dark and empty. Justice pawed the ground nervously, while Ilia double-checked the coordinates on her scroll. Then the wind changed, and he caught a whiff of static. His head whipped around, and he found two glowing blue eyes staring at him from the blackness of the trees.

What was it with hybrid hatchlings and sneaking around in the dark?

Ilia jumped, then called out, "Are you flying with us or not?"

The hatchling stepped forward, into the thin moonlight of the clearing. He cocked his head to one side and chirped, "Hello."

His rider was less friendly. A violet hood covered most of his face, except for a flash of yellow eyes. A gust of wind stirred his cloak, revealing a scorpion's tail wrapped around one of his legs. "You're late," he said. Not accusatory, exactly, but somehow his wide smile was more unsettling.

"If Cinder wants me to skip covering my tracks next time, she'll have to tell me so." Ilia gestured at the saddle. "Come on. Can your dragon keep up with us?"

"She will fly alongside." He swung up into the saddle. Justice felt Ilia tense the moment he settled in behind her. She chose to buckle him into the straps on her left side, so that he wouldn't need to hold on to her.

"Where are we going?"

"Beacon." Tyrian's tail flexed and brushed against Justice's hindquarters. He let out an involuntary snort—the stinger had accidentally brushed against a place where his scales were particularly soft, right by the joint of his leg.

* * *

"Here we are, my Goddess."

Ozone purred and rubbed her head against Tyrian's legs. She had to crouch down to do that, now—she came up almost to his chest. Too big, he told her, to follow him further onto the campus.

Her ears went flat. She'd never been away from him for more than a few minutes before, and now he was going to wander away with some stranger? Ozone whined, making him turn towards her. "You've done this before," he said. "Don't you remember?"

She didn't. But it would hurt him if she told him, so she only nodded. "That's good," he murmured, stroking the top of her head. "It's coming back to you."

So she sat calmly while their riders left—but Justice did not. He snarled and said, "No!" and grabbed Ilia by the back of her shirt. She pulled away and shot him a stern look.

"We'll be fine. We only have the Beacon guards to worry about. Don't we?" He winced, and settled back onto his haunches. Then the two faunus were gone.

While they waited, Ozone wondered if she'd been alone in the dark like this back when she was older. If she tried, she could always put together bits and pieces of the things she'd forgotten. Maybe she had. Maybe it had been when they were at Haven, after she'd moved out of Tyrian's room. She might have tried to sneak out and find him and gotten lost, and then she'd cried in the woods and he'd heard and come to find her.

Yes, that sounded right. Only sometimes, when she pieced a memory together, it would turn out to be wrong. Then Tyrian would tell her how it really happened, and she'd try to remember that instead. It was hard, and confusing, but it made her rider happy.

She glanced over at Justice. There was smoke curling out of his nostrils, and his gaze was fixed on the distant silhouettes of the Dragonry buildings.

"Don't worry," she said. "Tyrian is good at sneaking past the guards. And if any of them try to stop him, he can just kill them."

Justice did not seem reassured.

* * *

Tyrian still hadn't told her which building they were going to. Ilia had a feeling she knew, but she took care to stay behind him, making turns only after he'd already led the way, in case he'd notice she had more of a hunch than she should about what they were about to do. It helped that she didn't actually know where Beacon's hatchery was.

She felt unpleasantly exposed without Justice at her side—especially when moonlight glinted off the end of Tyrian's tail. He didn't seem to be armed, besides that... but he didn't need to be.

_It's fine, _she told herself. _Just get him talking and run._

Hard to do while they were infiltrating. They slipped silently past several guards armed with rifles. Tyrian was quicker and quieter than he looked, and obviously knew the route. Finally they came up to the hatchery building, where three guards stood outside every entrance.

Tyrian tapped her shoulder and signaled for her to climb up on the roof. He followed her expertly and moved on the slippery, slanted tiles as if they were flat ground, with his tail swinging behind him as a counterbalance. She struggled to follow.

There was something on the roof, maybe a temperature control unit, a great boxy thing that stuck out near the edge. A shadow detached itself from the unit. Ilia's heart flipped as she saw a rifle swinging around, and her foot skidded on the tiles. Then there was a soft whistling, and the guard slumped to the ground with hardly a sound. She hadn't even seen Tyrian's tail move.

He gestured to a panel on the ceiling, behind the temperature control unit. She unscrewed it, lifted it off, and dropped noiselessly to the ground below. Another guard leaned against the far wall. She shrank against the rows of incubators, blending instinctively into her surroundings. He was bored, inattentive, and when his head turned to one side she was able to slip behind him and put him in a hold until he passed out.

"He's down," she whispered, when Tyrian followed her.

His tail flexed. "Dead?"

"Yes," she lied, and kicked him under a table.

"Oh!" His eyes lit up. "You _are _good, aren't you? Cinder will be pleased."

"What do you need me to do?" The wire was cold against her chest, where she'd hidden it under her shirt.

Tyrian withdrew a needle and a vial of clear liquid, tinged slightly purple, from a pouch on his belt. "Just a little extra injection, that's all." He put it down on the table with the guard underneath it, and stuck the needle inside.

Ilia's mouth was dry. "Why?"

He hummed. Drew up a tiny portion of the vial's contents. "To weaken the council, of course."

"But... the new students won't care about deformed dragons. They'll just wait for new ones."

Tyrian shook his head sadly, though his frown didn't reach his eyes. "Yes, yes, they're awful, aren't they? Just awful." He pulled out the needle. "A cruel thing to do to the little ones. Better that they wait, isn't it? Come along at a better time, with better riders."

Ilia felt a surge of nausea. "They're going to die."

"This way is kinder," Tyrian said, and flicked the needle to shake out any air.

"Then why?" Ilia blurted. "What's the point of the glycinimide, when they're just going to be culled later?"

Tyrian glanced up at her. He was still holding the needle loosely in one scarred hand. His smile was back, stretching at his cheeks and hollowing his eyes. "Oh, that would be a slow thing indeed. Very cruel. That's why I'm using my own... recipe, this time." His tail curved up, over his shoulder.

"O-oh."

He put the needle down on the table. "You're such a smart one, aren't you? Very smart."

Ilia couldn't reply. Couldn't even breathe. She needed to run, but how was she supposed to leave him alone in here with the eggs?

Tyrian stepped closer. She flinched away, and he tutted softly. "What's wrong, little chemist? Aren't you curious?" The stinger twitched and flexed. "It won't hurt them one bit. Just a little prick, and the body stops moving. Then it stops breathing. Quick and easy."

The stinger drew back. Then a gunshot went off, and Tyrian jerked sideways. A red stain spread across his sleeve. He howled and grabbed his arm, whirling towards where the shot had come from. The guard lay there, his rifle in his hand, fumbling to reload for another shot.

"You _bitch," _Tyrian snarled, and charged him. Ilia didn't think—she lunged for the purple vial on the table, snatched it up, and bolted for the door. There was no second gunshot. Only a pained gurgle and heavy footsteps behind her.

She shot out the door, heedless of the armed guards. The door slammed into one of them as it opened, knocking him onto his back. The other two cried out, too startled by her sudden exit to aim until after Tyrian had come tearing after her.

The moment she was out in the open, she screamed, "Justice!" at the top of her lungs. No one shot at her—the only gunshot was in the distance, from one of the guards on the other door. When she risked a glance behind her, the three she'd just run past were dead.

She blended into the background as best she could—which made Tyrian the better target for their rifles. Only one seemed to hit him, making him let out another strangled curse. Then she heard dragons galloping towards her from every direction, many of them howling. One sounded wilder than the others, more panicked. She sprinted towards it.

An earth dragon got in her way. It was small, almost as young as Ozone. Ilia vaulted right over its back while it let out a confused bark. Its rider was there, too, a tall brown-haired boy who threw a rock at her as she passed. Missed.

Tyrian was still behind her. The boy tried to grab him, but wasn't fast enough—which probably saved his life. Another dragon poked its head up over a low wall. This one was fully grown, but obviously had no idea what was going on or which of the two strangers it was supposed to be stopping. It opted for both, and pounced on Ilia first. She ducked out of the way, but its tail came around and knocked her over.

She heard Justice's frantic barking as she hit the dirt, and rolled blindly towards the sound. Tyrian snarled. The dragon let out a pained howl and scrabbled backwards, almost stepping on her as it went. Ilia rolled to her feet and saw that it was limping, one foreleg bleeding from a small gash. It stumbled and sank down onto its side, breathing heavily. Tyrian jumped over its limp tail and advanced on her.

Justice came into sight then, with Ozone sprinting along beside him.

"Kill her!" Tyrian shouted.

Ozone's wings fluttered in confusion—but she obeyed. Ilia threw an arm up to protect her head as the dragonet collided with her. Every muscle in her body seized the instant that they touched. She crumpled to the ground again, and this time she couldn't even move to get up.

Teeth closed around her. She let out a panicked scream—but they never clamped down. Instead she felt herself being lifted up and slung over a saddle. Her saddle. Ilia fumbled under her shirt and thumbed the distress beacon on the wire. Then, spent, she collapsed against the saddle.

Justice mantled his wings to fend off Ozone. She pursued only as long as they were on the ground—the second they took to the wing, she veered off to defend her earthbound rider.

The Council dragons had no such problem. They streaked after her—she counted four of them when she risked a glance over her shoulder. She gritted her teeth and pressed herself against Justice's neck, listening to the crack of gunshots. He grunted, and a dark spot appeared on his shoulder.

_Come on, come on..._

Shadows appeared on the horizon. Ilia groaned in relief and felt Justice's frantic wing beats speed up. Jade was in the lead, with Rudder and Whisper on either side of her, trumpeting her challenge at the Council riders. Justice dipped a wing and wheeled around.

The clash was short and confused. Justice collided with one of the Council dragons and set them both spinning through the air. By the time Ilia could figure out which way was up, Jade had already shoved one of the enemy dragons into the treeline and Whisper had snatched the rider off of another. Rudder blasted an older water dragon with spray and scratched its nose when it tried to counter.

Whisper tossed the rider. They pinwheeled through the air, prompting their dragon to dive frantically after them. Justice clawed at the belly of the dragon that he'd been grappling with. At first she thought he was trying to kill it—but he'd cut the straps on the man's saddle instead. He slid sideways.

"Go!" Ruby shouted.

Rudder and Whisper turned tail at once. Justice lingered—Ilia put a hand on his neck and shouted, "We've got what we need, remember?" She went dizzy with relief when he obeyed.

Jade hovered for several long, agonizing seconds. Long enough that Rudder hesitated. But Ruby bent in close and said... something. Ilia couldn't hear it over the wind. Then, reluctantly, she turned away from the enemy and followed them into the dark. One dragon could still follow them, but it hung back rather than rushing into a fight where it was outnumbered.

Ilia looked down. The vial of poison was still clenched in her fist, and the wire seemed undamaged. They'd accomplished their mission, and Tyrian hadn't poisoned a single Council egg.


	98. Tools of the Trade

**Happy Friday everyone! This chapter the White Fang gets desperate, and when some important news breaks, nobody's favorite doctor is among the first to see it.**

* * *

**98\. Tools of the Trade**

* * *

"Remember," muttered Corsac, "speed is everything. We hit them fast and hard, and then we get out."

Harbinger flattened himself against the ground and tried not to whine. This was his first big mission—Fennec still thought he was too young, but they needed the eggs desperately. They were finally free of all the sabotage, but there still hadn't been any successful new hybrids, because there just weren't enough injections happening. The Council was buying up all the eggs they could get their hands on, even from the smallest brooderies. They'd been relying on the few brood dragons they had with them, and almost half of those had wandered off into the wild after the attack on their camp.

Things had gotten so bad that even little Flux was going out on a raid. She and Sienna had to leave at the crack of dawn, to make sure that Hazel wouldn't see her. When Harbinger last saw him, the big human had still been trying to coax Brand out of his patch of sunlight so that they could attack one of the largest nearby brooderies. He'd been even more lethargic than usual, lately—sometimes he napped all the way through the day.

Corsac raised his hand in the ready signal. Harbinger tensed, waiting as his rider counted down with his fingers. Finally he clenched a fist and they both burst out of the trees.

The inside of the broodery was dim and smelled like sawdust. A young woman yelped at their abrupt entrance and pressed herself against the wall of the barn, a rusty shovel abandoned at her feet. Corsac stepped to one side to block her way when she tried to run back towards the farmhouse.

"Where are the eggs?"

She didn't speak—but another voice called out from behind them. "They're still in the stalls. You _creatures_ have excellent timing." An old woman stood at the entrance to the barn, her arms folded and a scowl wrestling with the laughter lines on her face.

"Show me," Corsac said, tapping Harbinger's side to prompt him to sit up.

A silver-eyed brood mare poked her head out of the stall when the old lady approached. She stared at Harbinger and mumbled, "Who...?"

"Easy," the old woman said crisply, and reached in to the small heap of eggs at her feet. She balked and whined.

"No!" She stared at Corsac, and seemed to recognize his mask. Her tail lashed back and forth, making the whole stall shake. "No hurt! Bad ones! No!" Her paw blocked the old woman's attempts to take her eggs away.

"Hurry up," Corsac snapped.

The old woman glared at him. "They know who you are. Your people came here last month."

"Stop talking." He snapped his fingers at Harbinger. "Get her to move."

Harbinger's ears went flat. He tried to nudge the mare away from her clutch, but she snarled and snapped at him. "No!"

"We won't hurt them," he promised, feeling sick even as he said it. Maybe it wasn't a complete lie, they weren't _trying _to hurt the eggs... but too many of them died for it to be true. Not that it mattered much, since the mare wasn't listening. She curled her tail stubbornly around the clutch, and hunched down so that none of the eggs were visible.

"Harbinger," Corsac said sharply.

The mare was bigger than he was, and used her bulk to push him back against the wall of the stall. He had to resort to using his teeth and claws to force her away from the eggs so that Corsac could take them.

By then the others were starting to realize what was happening. One sire trumpeted at the top of his lungs and tried to break down the door to his stall in his panic. He couldn't get free, but he smashed off the top of the door, and a loose splinter lodged itself in the young woman's arm. Harbinger tried to lick the wound clean, but stopped when she flinched away from him.

"You've done enough," the old woman hissed. "Now get out. Unless you want to take the dragons, too? You damn parasites."

They left with fourteen eggs in Harbinger's saddlebags and a chorus of panicked wails in their wake.

* * *

It had been years since Sienna's last field mission. The quick excursion to Beacon, to try and get Blake to see Brand, hardly counted. It came down to the fact that her strengths lay mostly in logistics and strategy—she wasn't _awful _at breaking and entering, but she wasn't much better than the average recruit. Why send her, when there were twenty fresh-faced faunus sitting around the campfire who would jump at the opportunity to sneak into a broodery, but would rather die martyrs than try to work out how many supplies they needed to raise from their supporters in the kingdoms?

The answer, usually, was that you didn't. But they needed Flux on the raid, so here she was—choking on memories of the days when _she _had been one of those fresh-faced recruits. Back before Adam had even been born, when Corsac and Fennec were gangly children often reprimanded for excessive honesty, and when a 'raid' meant sitting in a cafe rather than stealing eggs. Back when those missions had been spent shoulder to shoulder with Kali and Ghira.

Flux chirped curiously from where she crouched, coiled around Sienna's ankles. The hatchling, who wasn't really much of a hatchling anymore, was starting to get more cautious about how she touched her rider, so that she wouldn't shock her. She wasn't sure if she was relieved by that or not.

"Let's get this over with," she said, and strode into the hatchery.

The farm wasn't large. It was so small, in fact, that they only had a single pair of brood dragons. Hopefully too small for the Council to prioritize commandeering their eggs. Sienna, Flux, and two of the rank and file of the Fang were the only ones there to raid it, mostly because the story they'd given Hazel was that they were traveling to a nearby village to collect more supplies. Technically true—and they'd be stealing some of the injection equipment as well as the eggs.

Sienna and Flux went in last, after the other two had already found the owner and subdued him. The dragon was there mostly in the case of something going wrong—but if they could avoid having her be seen, and possibly reported about in the news, that would mean avoiding a potential mess with Cinder. Not that she could do much to them, at this point—she was already fighting a three-way battle and wouldn't have time to focus on them. They'd lose her support, but that had been steadily dwindling anyway, and it was only a matter of time before she recalled Hazel as well. The only problem was that when he went, Brand might go with him.

They entered the barn. It was quiet inside—the brood mare snored contentedly in her stall, while the sire rested his chin on the door to his so that he could watch over her and the eggs while she slept. A third dragon sat on the floor of the barn, in a stall that was only half-built and partially open to the elements.

Sienna froze. So did the dragon. It cocked its head to one side and said, "Hnn?" Flux let out a little peep and hid behind her rider, which was perhaps not the most intimidating entrance she could have made.

Alright. So there was an extra dragon in the barn. Sienna scanned it from nose to tail—the frills around its neck marked it as a wind dragon, and the livid still-healing scar down the center of its chest gave her some hint as to why it was here. A recent and incapacitating injury, possibly sustained during the conflict between Cinder and the Council. The broodery must have scrambled to take it in on short notice, because their scout certainly hadn't mentioned it.

"Hello," Sienna said carefully. She hadn't opted to wear a mask—it was pointless when her face was on old posters with the Belladonnas anyway, and she'd never much liked the symbolism. That meant the dragon probably didn't know she was with the Fang. "Mister Grant asked me to fetch him the eggs."

Its eyes narrowed to slits, and a warning growl started in the back of its throat. The brood mare woke with a snort and blinked blearily at them, while the sire barked something at the elemental.

Well. It was worth a try.

"Go!" Sienna shouted, giving Flux a shove forward that left her hands smarting. She launched herself at the wind dragon. It roared and smacked her out of the air with one paw. She clung to its foreleg while it reared up, howling in surprise and pain as sparks popped and hissed against its scales.

Sienna bolted for the mare's stall. She was already up and growling a warning, but she was also slow and dazed. The eggs must have been laid only hours ago.

There was a thump behind her. The sire trying to break out of his own stall. The elemental only needed to swipe at the shoddy, half-built wooden wall in front of it to flatten it under one paw. Flux grappled with it. More sparks flew, and its tail jerked involuntarily and tangled in the mangled remains of its stall.

A hard smack on the nose made the mare rear back. Sienna picked up three of the eggs and shoved them into the sack slung over her shoulder. There were four more—and the mare was recovering, her ears drawn back and her teeth bared.

Two choices, in that split second—she could cut her losses and run, or risk making another grab. But they were desperate for the dragons that would let them outlast this crisis. They should have had an army by now, and because of _her _failed hybrid they had three dragons left, and only two whose loyalties they could really count on. There was really no choice at all.

She snatched up all four in one smooth motion—too smooth, and too fast. The shells slipped against one another. One slid between her shirt and its fellows and cracked against the floor. Sienna reeled, reaching out instinctively to catch what had already broken, and dropped another. It smashed open and soaked her shoes.

Howls erupted all around her. The mare shrieked with such fury that it deadened all other sound except for the ringing in her ears—but she couldn't attack without risking the eggs. Flux came when Sienna whistled, her jaws opened wide in what looked like a yawn and sounded, to her deadened ears, like nothing at all.

The elemental was the only one able to follow them out of the farm. It was panting heavily—not from anything Flux had done, but from the wound on its chest that had only just begun to heal. Sienna held an egg high and snapped, "Stop."

It stopped.

"Go back inside."

It growled. She loosened her grip slightly.

The elemental slunk away with its ears flat against its skull. Only when it was gone could Sienna finally relax and slide the last two eggs into her bag. Five in total. A good haul for such a small—

Pain erupted in her left arm. Sienna swore and lurched backwards. Her hearing had recovered enough to pick up a pair of guns cocking. The two other Fang members she'd brought with her.

When she looked down, there was a bite mark on her forearm, bleeding sluggishly, still tingling from the electricity that had run through it. Flux watched her with wide eyes and flattened ears. "What was that?" Sienna snapped, and the dragon flinched.

Slowly, she stretched out her neck—Sienna had to wave down the grunts before they pointed guns at her—and pressed her nose against the stain on her shoe.

Sienna knelt down carefully, keeping the bag of eggs tucked safely under her arm. She stroked her dragon's back, forcing down a wince every time sparks jumped from her spines. "I didn't mean for that to happen."

Flux stared reproachfully at her, even as her whole body trembled so violently Sienna was half afraid she might come apart at the seams. Demanding a better explanation.

Sienna didn't have one. Seven eggs would have been better than five, but five was still much better than three.

* * *

"No," Justice said, for the fifth time.

"She's not going anywhere," Blake promised. "Just let us look at her arm, please?"

Reluctantly, he raised one of his wings. Ilia was safe between his forepaws and his stomach, and had been since they'd landed. He'd let the General take the vial of poison and the listening device, and they'd been just fine hearing her report from under his wings.

"I'm fine," Ilia groaned. "It's just a bad scratch."

Pyrrha leaned down so that she could see. "It looks... burned."

"A bad scratch by a living taser. _Happy?"_

"No," Blake said curtly, and started dabbing something on the wound. Ilia flinched. Justice let out a warning hiss.

"It's fine," Harpy promised, bumping her snout against his shoulder. "Pyrrha puts that stuff on herself. It hurts, but sometimes riders get infections." Her ears lowered sheepishly—probably because she'd had something to do with the cuts.

"What's an infection?" Justice demanded, his tail lashing back and forth in a panic.

"I don't know. And it's _fine, _they don't get them if they put stuff on it."

"Oh!" Gigas put his paws up on Harpy's back so that he could peer in at Ilia. "I think they did that to Ursan, too. His arm was starting to smell funny, but it's normal again now."

Justice huffed smoke. "Next time one of _them_ can go talk to the creepy murderer," he grumbled. "I never want to be glad there are humans with guns around ever again."

"I told you, I'll be fine." Ilia pushed Justice's head away and stood up. Then she noticed his drooping ears and added, "Thanks for getting me out of there."

"At least we got what we needed," Blake said. "It's hard to listen to that and not realize Cinder's the last person who should be talking about better treatment for dragons."

"Some people will manage."

"Yeah." Blake smiled. "But we've done everything we can, and the information will be out there soon. She won't be able to keep lying to everyone."

* * *

Days later, Brand lay sprawled in his favorite spot. The sun had long since set and stopped baking his scales, but he didn't feel like moving. Especially not when Hazel was sitting by his head, rubbing under his chin.

There was a noise behind him. He rolled onto his side and opened one eye to see Sienna standing there. Flux wasn't with her, and there was a bandage wrapped around her arm.

"You need something?" Hazel asked.

"He likes you."

Brand gave him a long, slow blink. It was true. Hazel petted his head, and never yelled at him, and didn't confuse him like Blake did.

"Why?"

Hazel shrugged. "I do what I can for him, and I hope that's good enough."

"Gud," Brand rumbled.

A last scritch, and the petting stopped. He craned his neck and found that Hazel was eyeing Sienna's arm.

"Bad injury, for a trip to a village," he said.

"He didn't bite Adam."

Brand flinched and tucked his head under his wing. Hazel shushed him and stroked the back of his neck. "I doubt that," he said with a sad smile. "It's an occupational hazard with fire dragons."

"When he was older, I mean. He grew out of it."

"Most of them do." A pat on Brand's scarred snout.

"Why not?" Sienna was looking directly at him, now. "Was everything he did not bad enough?"

Brand shut his eyes and ignored her.

Hazel sighed. "Treating them well is good. But it's not enough to do it because you don't want them to bite you. They're living things, not tools."

"So are we," Sienna said bitterly. "Humans still don't make the distinction."

"They don't." Hazel shrugged. "Neither do you. It's too convenient not to."

Sienna sat heavily on the other side of Brand's head. "You're here, too."

Hazel sighed and patted Brand's head. "He was angry, once. Lashing out. I think we all got like that, Cinder more than anyone. Maybe it's time to think of building, instead of tearing down."

* * *

"—undercover operative recorded this startling confession from a follower of the infamous rogue Cinder Fall, suggesting that she has arranged to sabotage Dragonry eggs on multiple occasions," Lisa Lavender said. Even the veteran reporter seemed taken aback by what she was saying. A recording followed, and Tyrian's voice was instantly recognizable.

The video cut to General Ironwood. "Our informant was nearly killed bringing us this intelligence—one whistle blower was murdered trying to escape Cinder's organization. This does not excuse the Council's actions. We still need to work towards better conditions for dragons, but it has become very clear to me that Cinder Fall does not have their best interests at heart."

Doctor Watts sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Well," he told the room full of silent, motionless hybrids. "I believe that's our cue to leave."

The youngest hybrids hadn't grown quite as much as he would have liked, but there was no helping that. He didn't waste much thought on the ones upstairs—not worth the risk of trying to take them from the riders they'd already bonded to. Three of his hybrids would have to stay behind—a pure lightning elemental, a second attempt at the lightning and fire mix, and an ice and water hybrid. All were too young to fly, and too dangerous for others to carry. The others could fly or be ferried mostly without issue—except for the eldest, his gravity elemental.

It _could _fly. Theoretically speaking. He'd finally figured out a way to get the device to access the creature's powers, which meant it could keep itself in the air... for a few minutes at a time. Not enough. None of the other hybrids could come anywhere near carrying the thing, not when it was nearly the size of an elephant and built like a tank. But it was nearly the size of an elephant and built like a tank, so Watts would prefer to keep it if he could.

Last, and certainly not least, was Watts himself. His hybrids simply couldn't carry him. He needed the pit dragons.

Luckily, he'd already prepared two of them. The injections hadn't worked as dramatically as they did on hatchlings, but after the fire dragon had kept down several meals in a row, he'd started using them on the water dragon as well. Unfortunately the improvements seemed to have diminishing returns—he'd needed to give them twice as many shots as he'd anticipated just to keep them healthy until he left. Their powers, on the other hand, had increased in potency and stayed that way. Watts would have to suggest to the Council that the treatment be instituted as standard practice.

He drummed his fingers on his desk. The two dragons he'd fly out on had arrived. So had Tumbleweed, to open up the lab so that Hybrid 3 could leave it. He'd deleted all his formulas off both terminals, tucked away as much Dust as he could carry... but he hesitated. Should he deactivate the devices on the pit dragons when he left?

They'd likely cause chaos and make it much easier for him to leave... but the only dragon in the camp big enough to follow him was Strike, and he was quite confident that the boosted pit dragons could outfly her. Quite confident, because he'd taken the liberty of spiking her food. Nothing lethal—he didn't want to give Cinder a reason to ignore Ironwood _and _the Council in favor of coming for his head—but she wouldn't be flying for the next day or so.

No, he didn't need the pit dragons to cover his escape. On further reflection, he even left behind a file containing the key to controlling them. Not his personal override, of course, but enough that Cinder would be able to fly them against Ironwood. She was being kind enough to distract him from the Council, after all—it would be foolish to weaken her too much.

Watts tapped out a sequence on the scroll strapped to his arm. There was a low rumbling as the walls of the room shook, and small pebbles rained down from the ceiling. Then the door came crashing inwards, leaving a gaping hole that even one of the smaller pit dragons could have crawled through. He strode into his demolished office at the head of the flock of hybrids and swung himself into the makeshift saddle on Pearl's back. Tallow picked up the Gravity hybrid in his claws.

It began to glow. The two pit dragons took off as if they were weightless, followed by the hybrids. Watts was already far above the ground when he saw people starting to emerge from the cabins, shouting and pointing. He scanned the valley and spotted Cinder in the middle of the chaos, her hands held out to her sides. She was too far for him to see her expression, which was a real shame.

Watts snapped her a sardonic salute, and was gone.


	99. Back to the Wall

**Hello folks! And it's time for some breaking news fallout!**

* * *

**99\. Back to the Wall**

* * *

The White Fang did not generally get the news. They were based too far out from the kingdoms, where scroll coverage was spotty at best, and where even the Vytal Festival wasn't broadcast. But they _did _have some ability to receive short-ranged messages and calls, and some sympathetic eyes and ears in nearby villages. So maybe it would be more accurate to say that they got the news, but it took a while. Usually—but not today.

Within the first hour after the story had broken, Sienna was inundated with no less than four calls from three different villages, all clamoring to tell her about what Vacuo 24 had just broadcast. Namely, the end of Cinder Fall. Not by the Council's hand, or even really by Ironwood's—one of her people had admitted to killing hatchlings on her orders, and now her own power base was ready to eat her alive.

Which brought Sienna to where she was now, standing fifteen feet away from Hazel, which seemed like the minimum safe distance. Her scroll lay in pieces in the grass, and his palms were bleeding. She felt like she ought to say something, but she wasn't sure that would be wise. He was shaking with rage, his gigantic fists clenching and unclenching. Sienna had always known he was big, but it had been a long time since he'd struck her as dangerous.

The moment passed. Hazel picked glass out of his palms and said, "I'm sorry about that."

"What are you going to do?"

Hazel spat on the ground. "To hell with her. I'm done."

Sienna arched an eyebrow at the shattered scroll. "I'd gathered that. I'm asking what you intend to do with regards to the White Fang."

He shrugged. "Don't know. Doubt they'll let me stick around."

"You're good with Brand. But... no. They won't."

What had the world come to, that she regretted that? He was human, and he cared more about dragons than the cause, but she'd come to rely on his steadiness. Cinder really was a fool, to throw something like that away. Maybe the Fang were fools, too. If it were up to Sienna... but she couldn't sell something like that without a cult of personality she didn't have or want. She wasn't Adam. She couldn't, _wouldn't _force them to accept him.

Still. She was starting to notice a pattern—things always seemed to go bad when the steady ones were forced out. Hazel, Ilia, the Belladonnas. The dragons. She could call one or two of them traitors, but _all _of them...

"Good luck," she sighed, and meant it.

Flux was in her tent when Sienna returned to the main camp. She cut through the leash without really seeing it. There was no point keeping her in here, now. Hazel wouldn't care if he saw her.

She trotted at Sienna's heels as they continued through the camp. The information needed to be shared. The Albains first—they'd be difficult about it if she told anyone else before them. Informing Hazel had technically been an accident.

They were in the lab, according to Perry. Sienna muttered a curse under her breath and headed towards it. Without thinking, she snapped at Flux to, "Stay!" as soon as they came to the outer door. Flux stopped and sat down, sniffing the air and whining.

She should really explain it to her dragonet soon. Harbinger had taken it well, after all, as had Justice. It had to happen eventually—there was no way around it.

Fennec and Corsac were near the back, hovering over an egg that would go to the former if all went well. Which, considering their track record, it probably wouldn't.

Sienna shook off the thought. They'd been having far more success lately, now that they'd finally managed to replenish their lab enough to start injecting eggs. This egg would have a far better chance than the one that had produced her first hybrid.

It was still more likely to die than not.

"Sister Sienna," Corsac said, inclining his head in greeting. "Is everything well? You seem agitated."

"Cinder is finished."

Their eyes widened. Sienna explained the situation—the sabotage, the reveal on every news channel, and the small detail that it had been _Ilia _who had nearly died to expose it all. The Albains listened intently, Fennec's ears twitching with every word.

"But this is _wonderful _news!" Corsac burst out, when she was finished. "We can finally get out from under this human, and with her and the Council _and _Ironwood and the Schnees all at war, we have the perfect opportunity."

"The conflict won't last long. She'll lose almost all of her support over this, and where will that leave her?"

"Desperate," said Fennec.

"Exactly, brother." Corsac clasped his hands together. "This fight has three factions, remember. In such uncertain times as these, even a thumb on the scale could have incredible effect. Even with only our three dragons, we could take action to aid one group or the other and prolong the war for years."

Sienna knew where this was going. The opportunity hadn't been hard to spot. "Leaving the winner exhausted," she finished, "while we'll have all that time to grow our own army."

Fennec nodded gravely. "This is a chance beyond Brother Adam's wildest dreams—we can take Remnant, if we play our hand well."

"And even if we fail," added Corsac, "What have we lost? A few dragons, a few foot soldiers. But we'll come out the other side with a government so weakened by conflict that we won't even _need _the hybrids to topple it."

"You haven't mentioned the most likely outcome," Sienna said. "A victory for the Grimm."

Corsac's eyes glittered. "Our people are strong. And wasn't it you who said it best? Sometimes suffering in the short term is necessary, to build a better future."

There was a strange ringing in Sienna's ears. "I'll have to think about this. Only an idiot would jump into a war without a specific strategy in mind."

Corsac shrugged. "If you believe that's best. We'll be counting on your tactical cunning, of course."

Flux was still outside, waiting as patiently as she could. Her tail twitched like a live wire. When Sienna approached her, she looked up and went suddenly still. A frightened whimper slipped out, and she nosed at her hand in an effort to comfort her.

Sienna knelt down and stroked the dragon's neck. "What the hell are we doing?" she wondered, in a whisper that barely even reached her own ears. Sparks jumped, and she pulled away. Flux butted her head against her chest and squeaked.

Petting her helped more than she'd thought it would. Being with her was calming, even though she was almost never calm herself. Sienna scratched her behind the ears and listened to her purr.

Dragons were always like that. Simple, loyal... steady. Except when they weren't.

The bite on her arm itched.

* * *

"Brand?"

He opened one eye. Hazel was there, and something in his voice made the dragon pick his head up to listen.

The human knelt down next to him and stroked his nose. "I have to go."

He let out a confused, indignant whine. Hazel shushed him and pressed their foreheads together. "I'm sorry. I don't have a choice. Something's come out about Cinder. I can't keep helping her, and that means I can't stay here."

Brand's tail thumped heavily against the ground. He snorted steam, and fought an awful temptation to pin the kind human down and keep him. "Nno," he grumbled.

Hazel scratched his ears. "You could come with me, if you wanted. I won't ask you to fight the White Fang. Or anyone, if you don't want to." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I... don't know what I'm going to do now."

Brand hid his head under his wing. Hazel patted his neck, trying to coax him out again with soothing murmurs. "It's alright. I won't be angry if you don't want to."

He _did _want to. That was what hurt so much.

"Llux." He didn't bother trying to pronounce Harbinger's name.

Hazel heaved a sigh and leaned against him, wrapping an arm around his neck. "I understand. And... I'm sorry. I've been a damn fool."

Brand bumped Hazel with his nose. "Nno," he insisted. "Gud..." _Stay..._

The human sighed. "You trust us too much," he murmured, and pressed their foreheads together.

He left soon after that—and it felt like he'd taken most of Brand's insides along with him. The dragon lay for a while in a lifeless coil, ignoring the goings on of the camp. Until one of them came close enough to touch him.

Brand glared up at Sienna from where his head lay. She crouched down, but didn't get closer than a few feet from him. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I need to ask for a favor."

His ears went back. If she wanted him to hunt Hazel, now—!

"Can you fly us somewhere? There and back?"

Even the thought of sitting up seemed impossible... but then Flux put her little paws up on his back, and he had to do it. She chirped at him as he rose ponderously to his feet, bending down low so that Sienna could climb on his back.

Strange, how people weighed on him. She might have been lighter than Adam, but she was so much heavier than Hazel.

* * *

It wasn't until the following morning that the news reached the Branwen camp through a former member. He'd left when his dragon died of a congenital heart condition, ten years after they would have culled him. But upon seeing the news he'd flown off on a friend's dragon and tracked them down.

Raven stayed silent throughout his explanation. Then she retreated to her tent and, for the first time in almost a decade, used her scroll. They'd have to move now, anyway—Cinder knew where they were camped.

Qrow picked up on the third ring. "You heard."

"You're going after her."

"Yeah."

"What about the Council?"

"We've gotta take this stuff one thing at a time. And—" he hesitated. "I can't talk about specifics over a scroll when they might be listening, but dealing with her is more urgent."

"More urgent." Raven's knuckles went white against the scroll.

"She tried to kill your daughter. In case you forgot."

"Cinder is a _symptom," _Raven hissed. "Leave the problem and there will _always _be more of her!"

"We know," Qrow snapped. "You might act like we don't so you can go on not giving a damn, but you know we do. I'm telling you, we have information you don't that I _can't _share over a scroll."

"You're splitting your forces. Wasting time and resources on someone who _doesn't matter."_

"She—"

"I don't give a _damn _what she's done, Qrow. It's not worse than them. When the important fight is over I'll hunt her down and rip her throat out, but until then she means nothing to me."

"I told you. Right now, she _is _the more important fight. I can explain if we meet in person."

Raven's lip curled. "No. No excuses, and no bullshit. I'll give you a week. We'll need at least that long to prepare. One week to deal with Cinder, and then the tribe is going to do something about the Council. You can help or not, your choice."

"For the love of—Raven, we've got a better shot if we attack _together—"_

She hung up on him, relieved her scroll of its battery, and shoved it back in its box.

* * *

Twenty-five hours after the news about Cinder had broken, Doctor Watts hung up his hat and coat in Vacuo's Council headquarters. Interns scrambled to bring him coffee and a meal, only to yelp and retreat from the trio of hybrids that trotted obediently at his heels. They were his three youngest—the only ones that could still fit comfortably indoors.

Eight of the nine Councilors were present—the eldest, Aegolius, was unable to leave his home in Atlas, so his chair was filled by a holograph. Every eye turned towards Watts as he entered. The moment his hybrids put their paws over the threshold, chaos erupted.

"You brought those creatures _here?!" _Cordovan burst out, leaping from her chair as if he'd just dropped a large and hairy spider in her lap.

Watts sighed. "There's no need for that, I can assure you they are completely under my control." To demonstrate this, he had them all stand on their hind-paws and bend at the waist. Dragon physiology didn't make for the most _elegant _of bows, but the perfectly synchronized maneuver was impossible to achieve through mere training. Some—but not all—of the Councilors relaxed.

Councilman Pepon cleared his throat and stood up. "Councilors, I'm sure you remember Doctor Arthur Watts. I've spoken about him at some length, as a possible solution to our problem."

Watts glanced around the room, taking note of the various expressions of interest, hope, fear, and disgust. Spinnet, the Councilor Ozpin had managed to get into office, was keeping their face carefully neutral.

"Pepon." Gosling folded her hands and leaned towards him. "To be frank, we've already decided on a course of action. General Ironwood has the support of most of the Flight Squads, and like it or not we _need _them. I've had enough of your stalling—we are going to meet with him to negotiate terms."

"With respect..." Watts bowed low and approached the table. He didn't sit down, but instead snapped his fingers so that Hybrid 48, his earth and fire hybrid, stood beside him. It was so close that the Councilors could likely feel the heat of its scales. There were startled exclamations, and he allowed himself a small smirk. "I don't believe you _do _need the Flight Squads."

Aegolius squinted at the dragon. "Is there something wrong with my connection?" he asked. "What is that on its head?"

This time Watts smothered his amusement. So Pepon hadn't told them—that was good. This sort of reveal deserved the proper gravitas.

"Would anyone like to give it an order?" Watts asked. "Anything it can physically perform."

They looked dubious, but Cordovan risked a suggestion. "Step back."

Hybrid 48 stepped back.

More curiosity in the room, now, and the suggestions came thick and fast. The hybrid lay down, rolled over, twisted itself into a knot, and even balanced on its back paws for nearly a minute. Watts added in the other two one by one, until all three of them were performing synchronized tricks at once.

"Yes, yes, they're very well-trained," Gosling said, waving a hand. "But if we're to oppose Cinder we need an army _now, _not a year from now, and seeing as they don't have _riders _I don't see why you've brought them here." She glared at Pepon.

"On the contrary—they haven't been trained at all." Watts snapped his fingers, and Hybrid 48 approached once again. It lowered its head onto the table so that the Councilors could see the device more clearly. A few of them recoiled from the heat—it wasn't quite as hot to the touch as the fire and lightning hybrid, but contact with the creature could easily burn the unwary.

"This plate here contains the AI that is piloting the dragon's body. They are programmable, perfectly obedient, and require no riders... and the dragons that are wearing them are all less than two weeks old."

"That's impossible," Gosling said flatly.

Watts smirked. That was his favorite kind of praise—and he eagerly embarked on the lengthy process of proving her wrong.


	100. Scorched Earth

**Happy Friday, folks! And, holy shit! We're in the triple digits now. That's cool... and terrifying, but mostly cool!**

* * *

**100\. Scorched Earth**

* * *

Thank the brothers for Pietro.

"You're _sure?" _James asked, leaning forward over his desk. "You can get them off?"

Pietro cleared his throat. "Well, anyone can get them off—given enough time, and several other dragons to pin the poor things down. I wouldn't call it _simple _by any stretch. Unless we're willing to risk attacking the devices directly with fire or lightning or some such, which I'd recommend against outside of an emergency."

"And the mech?"

He wobbled his hand back and forth. "I haven't had much time to work on it myself, but the armor is already assembled and I've had a few students cobbling the flight system together. It's not done yet, but it should be finished within the next few days."

James slumped back in his chair. "That's good. Very good, thank you."

There was a knock at the door. Winter didn't bother waiting for him to say anything before she walked in. James tensed—she wouldn't do that if she had good news for him. And, given that he'd sent her with a squad to check Cinder's camp... "She's gone?"

"The place was empty," Winter confirmed. "Burned to the ground, to be more precise. We couldn't even figure out how many people were living there up until recently. We're asking the students from Haven and Shade about where she might have gone, but I doubt that will lead us anywhere."

He rubbed his temples. "Any good news?"

"Actually, yes. We got a message from a group of older riders—most of them are retired friends of Taiyang's. There are too many of them to risk flying into Atlas with the Council around, but they're willing to assist however they can."

James chewed on that for a moment. "Every dragon helps, but what we really need is a location."

"I could try to trace the signals on those devices," Pietro offered, "though I doubt it would do us much good. Arthur is... well... fantastically paranoid at the best of times."

"Try," James said, and rolled his shoulders in a futile attempt to banish the tension there. He hated being reactive—and as it was, they were stuck waiting for Cinder to make the first move. Not to mention that there was always the chance the Council might attack, even though he suspected they would opt to leave Atlas Dragonry alone until she had been dealt with.

He almost wished they could just get _on _with it. He squashed the thought as soon as it formed... and much too late to escape the irony when, ten minutes later, Neon stumbled into his office without knocking.

"Uh, sir!" She saluted—something he'd already told her twice she didn't need to do—and quailed a little under Winter's withering look. "There's something on the news."

_Something _turned out to be a rash of sightings of unidentified riders. James flipped restlessly from channel to channel—for several minutes the news cycled between the same three videos, all from Vale, that had prompted the initial reports. But soon a deluge of other footage poured in, as people who now knew what to look for started filming on their scrolls. Atlas, Vacuo, Mistral... they were everywhere.

The general consensus seemed to be that these were riders defecting to what the Council had started calling 'Ironwood's Coup,' which some news crews took to be a sign that they should panic. Others put a more positive spin on it, reassuring themselves and their audience that it was incredibly unlikely that the sightings had anything to do with Cinder.

It was a reasonable assumption—except that James happened to be in a unique position to know that these weren't his riders. He kept flipping, hoping to find _some _pattern in the random appearances, until Winter's voice cut through his daze like a whip.

"Stop!"

He stopped. A local news team was reporting on a video taken in southern Mistral, where a gigantic dark shape stood out against blue sky. James frowned. It looked... odd, for some reason he couldn't quite place.

"Its missing a foreleg." Winter pointed. "Just like one of the pit dragons."

James felt something cold settle into the pit of his stomach. _Surely, _he thought, _surely she wouldn't risk putting that in their hands._

But there was another familiar silhouette, of a wind dragon short most of its tail. In video after video, Winter was able to identify pit dragons that fit the same general description—too many to be coincidence.

He shot to his feet. "Winter, get the Squads in the air. Pietro, the professors—Glynda and Peter—Qrow—everyone you can find. Neon, the students."

"But—they're all over the place," Neon protested. "Where are we going?"

James grimaced. "She's split her forces, so we'll have to do the same."

It was tactical suicide. She only had, what, two dragons? And most of them were barely out of the shell. "What the hell are you playing at?" he grumbled under his breath.

The news feeds did not answer.

* * *

Neo, Ilia, and Ruby.

Not the three people Mercury would've picked to be stuck with almost constantly... but it could have been worse. And, if he was being honest, he wasn't sure which three people he _would _have picked. Maybe he could have gone for Tyrian, Watts, Cinder, and a good-sized bridge to push them off of.

It wasn't like Neo or Ilia were that bad. They mostly didn't talk to him, Neo because she didn't talk to anyone, and Ilia because she didn't like him and they had nothing to say to one another. He was fine with that. Ruby, though? Ruby was starting to become a problem.

"It's okay, girl," she promised, petting Storm's head to try and soothe her. And get her to let go of the sleeve she'd seized in her mouth. "I promise, I'll be right back!"

Almost everyone had taken off already. But Ruby didn't want to stay behind, and Jade was her best option for flying with them, so she couldn't leave without her. And Rudder and the others wouldn't leave without _her, _which left Mercury standing awkwardly to one side while he watched the chaos.

He normally _liked _chaos, but this wasn't the fun kind of chaos, like watching dragons demolish Haven. It just left him vaguely uncomfortable even though it had nothing to do with him. And feeling things he really didn't want to feel, like sympathy. Look where that shit had gotten him with Emerald.

"Miss Rose!"

Ruby jumped and turned around. Goodwitch waved at them from across the field, where she stood next to one of the smaller dragon carriers.

"Get in," she said, when they approached. "I'll fly."

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou—" Ruby burst out, and collided with the professor at full speed.

She rocked back with the impact, then sighed and gestured towards the hold. "Quickly, if you would." Storm bounded on board, followed soon after by Jade. But when Rudder tried to board, Goodwitch stepped in his way. "Best if the rest of you fly alongside. There's a reason the others aren't on carriers. They have narrow exits, which is good for defending them against the Grimm... and less so for trying to get out in the middle of a fight."

Mercury nodded and hoisted himself into Rudder's saddle. The rest of the group was already in the air, split into three smaller flocks. Goodwitch steered the carrier into the group with Port at its head. From what Ironwood had told them on the ground, they'd be making for Mistral while other groups headed to Vacuo and Vale. Some, including Winter and several of the flight squads, would stay behind.

He took a deep breath and kept his eyes fixed on the horizon. There'd be pit dragons and Cinder's riders waiting for them in Mistral. His throat went tight. He made a futile attempt to ignore it, to shove whatever the hell kept bubbling up in his stomach down where it belonged and keep a cool head. It wasn't working.

Fuck it. He'd _liked _Emerald. She'd been annoying, and naive, and pathetically attached to Cinder... but he'd liked her. It had been a while since he'd been genuinely _angry _with someone. Just as long since he'd killed anyone for personal reasons.

It felt like time for a change.

* * *

In the scramble to get everyone mounted and in the air, Pyrrha didn't even consider how she herself was going to travel. She was too busy running the news from the spot behind the barns where Harpy had been nesting, to the forest where Glacier and Ragnar liked to walk. And from there she had to keep going, to shout warnings to the Haven students staying in the eastern dormitory, and on and on, until she finally reached the main courtyard where they were taking off and stopped. She turned in a slow circle, hoping to see some sign of where she was supposed to go.

She didn't have to wait long before she spotted Tai waving to her from on Quake's back. With a rush of relief she jogged towards them—and skidded to a halt when Harpy jumped in front of her.

"Hello," she said, and gave her a scratch under the chin. "It's good to see you too." Pyrrha moved to go around her. The hybrid's tail flicked out, lazily blocking her path.

Her heart sank. "If you want me to go with you, I have to fly somehow," she explained. "We've already flown with Quake, remember? I'll be right there with you..." Harpy made no move to get out of her way. There was a strange expression on her muzzle which almost resembled a smirk.

"Listen, we don't have much time—" The hybrid extended her neck and gently grabbed the back of her riding jacket in her teeth. "Um?" she said helplessly, as her feet left the ground. Then Harpy dropped her directly on her back.

"Harpy," she said, "That's a lovely thought, but I don't know if you're big enough to—"

Harpy started to run. Her wings flared up on either side, and her back legs bunched beneath her.

"You don't have a saddle! There are straps on them that keep a rider from—Harpy!"

The words were lost in the wind as Harpy jumped. She floundered for a moment, flapping hard as she adjusted to the weight. But she stayed up, and was soon gliding in easy circles, dipping her wings so that she made tight hair-pin turns.

Pyrrha, who had flung both arms around her neck and was trying not to squeeze it too tightly, chanced a peek over Harpy's shoulder. Far below, the ground rushed past in time with the howling wind. It snatched at her hair and the riding leathers she was _very _glad she'd thought to put on that morning. Already her bare arms were scratched and red from where they'd been rubbed raw. Her legs dangled freely, without so much as a fraying rope to keep her attached to the dragon.

It was exhilarating.

She relished the feeling, even as she listed dangerously to one side and had to grab the spines on Harpy's neck. How long had it been since she'd flown like this, without another rider sitting in front of her?

But she didn't want to think about that. Instead she leaned into the wind and let out a whoop—which Harpy took as a signal to speed up. She took a full lap around the rest of the gathering forces as they split into three.

Twiggy soared up to meet them, with Ao Guang and Freya on either side. Harpy roared a greeting and dove at her, snapping playfully at her wings before veering off. Reluctantly, Pyrrha patted her back and shouted, "Better to save our energy. We have a long day ahead."

Harpy's head turned just enough that one pale yellow eye could fix on hers. Pyrrha read the challenge in it, and smiled.

* * *

"This is it, my dear." Her rider's scarred hands smoothed along the length of her neck. "This is our chance."

Ozone sat up straighter. It was hard—the ropes were tight around her shoulders, and the weight on her chest threatened to pull her off-balance. Wind howled around them as Diver's great wings rose and fell. She could feel his ribs through his back. She hoped he didn't die—he had no rider to bring him back again.

Mistral rose from the horizon, a glittering mountaintop casting its shadow across the sea. Its massive wall curved across the space between water and rock, while a thick metal grate blocked off any approach from the water. Ozone rose up onto her haunches, waiting. Waiting...

"Go!" Tyrian shouted, and her wings snapped open. The wind tore her from Diver's back and set her spiraling up into the sky. She flapped hard, already panting with the effort of supporting the steel canister strapped to her chest.

Diver angled himself towards the towering walls. Ozone flew perpendicular to him, over rugged foothills and across a slow-moving river. And there, on its banks, were her targets.

One massive snout rose into the air, cracking open to reveal rows and rows of jagged teeth. Red eyes glowered at her as the Grimm tilted its head to get a better look. Its tail flicked back and forth, sending up gouts of water as it struck the river.

Ozone wasn't afraid to die again, but instinct still made her balk at the sight. These Grimm might be called River Dragons, but they had no wings. Harmless to her from here... and longer, from nose to tail, than Dusk. Webbed feet sank deep into the mud as they meandered along the riverbank. Bony ridges and plates of armor ran down their flat bodies, with their flesh visible only here and there, at their joints and inside their cavernous mouths. Even the smallest of them could swallow her in one bite. Worst of all was the cold malice in the way they looked at her, and their cold, pitiless eyes.

She hovered directly over the biggest of all of them, steeling herself. Then she hooked a claw into the rope across her chest and snapped it. The canister dropped with a faint whistling sound, directly onto the Grimm's armored back... and exploded.

Chips of bone scattered from the blast. One even embedded itself in the elbow of one of the smaller Grimm, making it hiss in displeasure. The monster she'd struck hardly even flinched. It only stared at her with those empty eyes and let out a deep, shuddering growl.

Ozone faltered in midair, then shook herself and darted away. When she risked a glance behind her, the Grimm was following—and there were dozens of others behind it. They looked almost silly when they walked on their stubby legs, but then the leader slipped into the shallows of the river and struck out towards her. There was a horrible kind of predatory grace to the way it wound through the water, its powerful tail undulating behind it and leaving only tiny ripples on the surface.

It was gaining on her.

Ozone fought down a surge of panic. They _still _couldn't reach her... but she had an awful feeling they knew that, and didn't care. They'd just follow her until she was too exhausted to fly anymore. Luckily, that was part of the plan.

A sharp crack—even miles away, it was loud enough to make her heart skip a beat. Plumes of smoke rose from the city's walls, mostly obscuring the little speck that was Diver wheeling overhead. More dots rose to meet him, but it didn't matter.

Ozone angled herself towards the largest breach she could see, with the army of Grimm still swimming silently in her wake.

* * *

Another explosion sounded in the distance. Leo yelped and pressed a hand over his chest, trying to calm his hammering heart. His hands trembled as he gripped the edge of his desk. What was he supposed to _do, _when all of his students were—

_Thump._

He yelped and dove under his desk. Had that been another bomb? But there was no explosion—only a quiet scraping sound from somewhere above him. The roof. Leo's head spun as he took in great gulps of air, his trembling knees knocking against the legs of the desk.

There was a crash. Cool air flooded the room as glass tinkled to the floor, and a dragon's tail slithered through the broken window. A dark shape moved outside, long limbs reaching in...

Leo clamped a hand over his own mouth and cowered there, hoping against hope that the intruder wouldn't see him. He heard static popping, and a harsh giggle. "Hello, Headmaster."

His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. He knew that voice from somewhere... but he couldn't place it. Not until the figure crossed the room and crouched down so that they were almost nose to nose.

"Tyrian," he whispered.

"Look," the man cooed. A dragon's head poked under his arm to study Leo—not the one that had stuck its tail through the window. Too small, and... oh. Oh, dear. Cinder had given him another hybrid.

"What's his name?" Leo asked. He tried to keep his voice steady, and failed miserably.

"What's his name," Tyrian repeated, high and mocking. "This is my Ozone."

Oh. _Dear._

Leo swallowed convulsively. "I... I see. I'm glad to see she's... alright. And despite everything that happened, I assure you that none of the blame falls on you. I'm... sorry, that we failed you."

Tyrian giggled again. "Ooh, isn't he a funny old man? He thinks I can't tell the difference."

Feeling even more lost, Leo mustered a queasy smile. "Oh. Well, that's good. A little... odd, to be sure, giving her the same name, but—"

Tyrian's voice turned sing-song. "You're not your dragon, Leo."

"What do you m-mean?"

He smiled with all of his teeth. "Savannah fought the Council. You fought Savannah."

"Tyrian—!" A hand shot out and caught him around the throat. He kicked out instinctively, but hit nothing but air. The dragon crawled onto his chest, electricity stinging him wherever her claws touched him. Leo couldn't even scream—only a pained croak escaped.

Tyrian leaned forward to whisper into his ear. "Your courage died with her."

Leo's struggles were already weakening. He forced out one last, garbled sound. "Please... I can... help you..."

Air rushed back into his lungs. He collapsed against the legs of his desk, his hand to his bruised throat. The dragon bared her teeth at him. "Go on," Tyrian crooned. "How can you help us?"

"Walls," Leo croaked. "I know... weak points. The harbor..."

Tyrian hummed thoughtfully. Then his smile was back, and his tail curled almost tenderly around Leo's leg. "Why not."

Leo yelped as he was yanked to his feet. A shove from Tyrian sent him stumbling towards the window, where another dragon waited. An elemental, all skin and bones, its hide pitted with scars. He wanted to be sick when he spotted the metal glinting at its forehead.

Tyrian settled in behind him, his stinger resting almost casually against Leo's calf. "Lead the way," he said. Leo raised a shaking hand, and pointed.

The hybrid paced them as they flew. It was delusional to think she could be the same one—the true Ozone had come from a similar Dust mixture, perhaps, but she'd been much bulkier than this one. Her scales had been sea green and gold where this one's were deep blue and copper. And her eyes were all wrong, blue instead of yellow and soft where they should have been hawkish.

Something still compelled him to whisper to her, quietly so that Tyrian wouldn't hear him over the wind. "I'm so sorry."


	101. Smoke

**Ever listened to the noises crocodiles make? Kinda sounds like somebody started a chainsaw at the bottom of a well, but like... the audio is playing at a quarter of the speed. Or possibly time itself has slowed. And you know they're coming up to kill and eat you.**

**Also, I had someone ask me in a review whether I planned on including Clover and the Ace-Ops. Short answer... probably not, sorry. There are already **_**so many **_**people and dragons** **to keep track of (why do i keep doing this to myself?), and they didn't exist yet when I planned everything out, and we're getting into the endgame as it is.**

* * *

**101\. Smoke**

* * *

They were late. Very late.

A dark cloud hung over Mistral's wall, streaked with cherry red where the Dust hadn't yet burned itself out. And, as Scarlet got closer, he noticed that the river that snaked its way towards the city was shimmering with ominous ripples.

Port waved his arms, signaling for them to speed up. Nimbus was already way ahead of him. Scarlet crouched low in the saddle to shield himself from the wind, and tried not to panic too much when he realized they were now outpacing most of the others.

As they swept in closer, he spotted shadows in the smoke. Some were definitely dragons, but some of their shapes were... off. Nimbus dipped down even lower, and one of them burst out of the haze so quickly they almost collided.

Red eyes fixed on them. Not a dragon at all—the chaos must have attracted Lancers. Scarlet yelped as the stinger shot towards his chest. There wasn't time for him to duck, but Nimbus twisted in midair so that it flew harmlessly between the dragon's legs. Roaring indignantly, he crashed head-on into the Grimm and grabbed one of its legs in his teeth.

They slammed into the side of a building. At the same time, there was a sound like distant thunder that went on much too long. A plume of dust joined the smoke and ash in the distance, and broken glass and rubble rained down into the street. This close Scarlet could see _people,_ fleeing in panic from the fight up above. But there was nowhere to go. More lancers swarmed down into the streets, their antennae bristling.

Nimbus jumped off the first Grimm, which had gotten unlucky with a bit of rebar and was already dissolving. More shadows fell across the street—friendly ones, this time. Huo landed heavily in the middle of the road, stood up on his hind legs, and bellowed a challenge that sent the civilians scattering for cover. They were not, admittedly, the most friendly-_looking _reinforcements.

"We're here to help!" Sun assured them. Huo spat fire at a Lancer that dipped a little too low, vaporizing it in a cloud of evil-looking steam. That seemed to win over most of the people still outside.

Zircon joined them seconds later. He quailed slightly in the face of the horde of Lancers—but soon occupied himself in sniffing at the buildings around them and, in the case of one that had collapsed, digging through the rubble. He lifted out a small child who didn't seem to realize he wasn't one of the Grimm, judging by how hard the boy was crying. Zircon dropped him on his back with Sage, who went to work soothing him.

"Where's Nymph?" Sun shouted, over the din of Huo grappling a small Lancer between his front paws. Scarlet looked up. A few Lancers were still hovering overhead... but most of them seemed to have vanished.

No, hang on. There they were—in a halo around a large black dot that was falling right towards them. "Crap!" Scarlet blurted, and urged Nimbus back into the air.

Too late. Nymph and the Lancer she was tangled up with slammed into the roof of a building, spilling brick shards everywhere, then landed in a heap on the asphalt. She twisted instinctively to shield Neptune from the impact, and paid for it when she landed much too hard on her front paw. Her grip slackened just a little, and that was enough for her opponent to escape.

It was bigger than the others, and armored from its head to its stinger. Definitely a queen. And it was getting to its feet only a few yards away from a throng of terrified civilians.

"Go!" Scarlet shouted, urging Nimbus into a leap. His wings flared, carrying him over the crowd and onto the Queen's back. Its stinger lashed out, but not before Huo grabbed one of the monster's legs and yanked it off. It screeched, its aim went wide, and the stinger struck a lamppost instead.

The Grimm heaved and struggled. Nimbus tipped sideways, and before either of them could try to correct their balance they were already rolling to one side. They hit the wall of a nearby house shoulder-first and caved the whole thing in. Parts of the second story rained down on their heads. Scarlet threw his arms up and flinched as something heavy struck his shoulder.

Nymph roared and launched herself back into the fight. Sprinting on her three good legs, she caught one of the Grimm's wings in her teeth. Huo lunged forward to grab the other, and the pair of them heaved in unison. It thrashed, which only made them come off faster.

A noise stopped them cold. There was an old man in the room they'd just broken into, cowering under a coffee table. "Get out!" Sun shouted, as Huo clambered on top of the Grimm and tried to wrestle it to the ground. "Go!"

More Lancers converged on them. Nimbus pinned the Queen's stinger between his paws, to keep it from attacking anyone else. That freed up Nymph to shoot blasts of water at the smaller Lancers, but there were too many of them and the old guy still wasn't _moving!_

Scarlet opened his mouth to yell at him, but before he could Zircon thrust his head through the opening and grabbed him. Tucking him safe under one foreleg, he limped over to the rest of the civilians and gathered them under his belly. He flared his wings and bared his teeth at the Lancers, even though his ears were flat with terror.

A Lancer charged him. He swiped at it with a paw and backed away, curling his tail around his charges to keep them sheltered. A low growl built in the back of his throat.

Finally, Huo managed to pry loose some of the armor on the Queen's back. He blasted the weak spot with fire until the monster stopped struggling and crumbled away. He and Nimbus rushed outside to help the other two with the Lancers—the swarm was already thinning, and he could see more dragons in the sky overhead.

When the last Lancer turned to smoke, Zircon let out a little huff and collapsed onto his side, panting heavily. He licked at his paw, where one of the Lancers had manged to sting him. Sage patted his back. "Good boy," he said.

Zircon's tail gave a tired wag.

* * *

Despite herself, Pyrrha tightened her arms around Harpy's neck the instant she saw the wall. Or rather, the wreck of the wall. Grimm were already crawling out of the river and through the breach—and despite it being wide enough to fit Crucible quite comfortably, they were having some trouble squeezing through. Only three got in, that she could see, before a Council rider swept overhead. They didn't aim for the monsters—instead, one of them dropped a Dust bomb at the foot of a nearby building. There was a terrific crash, and a mountain of rubble tumbled down into the hole.

Harpy landed in a side-street a little ways away from the monsters, her ears perked tall, listening. It was all Pyrrha could do to hold on and try not to distract her at the wrong moment. She darted through an alley and sniffed the air.

Somewhere _much _too close, there came a sound like a motorcycle engine revving up—if that motorcycle was the size of a city bus and very, very angry. Pyrrha flinched and gestured frantically to Harpy to retreat, but the hybrid ignored her.

They darted down an alley, Harpy's footsteps so quiet that even right on her back Pyrrha could hardly hear them. She ducked behind a dumpster just in time. Something pale flashed by. A peek around the corner of the dumpster showed segment after segment of the Grimm's tail disappearing further into the city.

Harpy waited until its back legs came along. She dropped down, her hindquarters twitching in anticipation, and leaped before Pyrrha could so much as shout a warning. They collided with the monster right about where its 'knee' was, and Harpy's teeth clamped shut on vulnerable flesh.

It's tail lashed out. Harpy backed up to avoid it, which let the Grimm whirl around—tearing apart all the buildings facing them in the process.

It was fast. How on _Remnant _was something that big so fast?

"Up!" she shouted. Harpy was much too young to take off without a running start, but she seemed to understand what Pyrrha had meant. She scrabbled at the wall of a nearby shop, clambering up until she perched near the second story.

The Grimm's jaws opened wide enough that someone could have tossed a car inside without touching any of its teeth. Harpy lunged at the same time and blasted it full in the face with her powers. It reeled, bit down on nothing, and thrashed its head back and forth. Its eyes turned a much duller red that reminded her of dried blood. The Grimm drew itself up...

And Harpy darted up and over the roof, into the side-street, and vanished into the shadows. The Grimm lumbered after them. Just as it tried to cross the street, Harpy struck again, but this time her claws skittered harmlessly off its armor.

It reacted faster. The massive jaws were already slamming shut by the time Harpy tried to retreat. She threw herself backwards, so quickly that there was no hope of her staying on her feet—because she wasn't trying to. She was going to _roll_ on her_ back _to avoid the bite.

Pyrrha had just enough time to leap clear and avoid being squashed under Harpy. She landed hard on her tailbone, and for a horrible instant she lay prone on the ground with the Grimm looming over her. She could have counted its teeth.

The next heartbeat, Harpy scooped her up and darted away again—this time remembering that Pyrrha was on her back in time to duck under a bit of rebar that jutted from a nearby wall. The Grimm tried to follow, but they were smaller and could make sharper turns, and it soon lost track of them.

Harpy had done what she could—it would take a much bigger dragon to land a killing blow through all that armor.

* * *

"This is the _worst _idea I've ever had!" Whitley screamed into the wind. His new riding goggles were askew, and he had to duck his head to keep his face from going numb. There was a saddle now, at least—and unlike the blanket, it had straps for his legs. That way, he could be securely attached to Glacier while he dropped headfirst towards the demon crocodiles invading Mistral.

"What are we _doing?!"_

Too late to stop, now. And Winter and Weiss had both told him not to touch the reins. Though, now that Whitley thought about it... why would dragon saddles even _have _reins if they weren't supposed to do something? What if they had to make a sharp turn?!

A horrible bellow from right below them, as one of the Grimm crashed through a shop front. It thrashed and hissed, lunging erratically at anything around it that moved, as if it had been blinded. Ragnar, who was just ahead of them, landed on the monster with a thud that shook the ground.

Glacier tried to follow his example, but this time it was ready. The instant he hit the ground, its head snapped around, snake-like, and its jaws clamped down on his hind leg. He howled and thrashed, but it wouldn't let go. His claws raked across its back, tearing furrows in its bone armor, but not reaching anything vital.

Ragnar roared something, and Glacier started to steam. Condensation beaded and froze on his scales. Whitley hunched in on himself as the cold sank into his bones and, one by one, the Grimm's teeth started to crack. Finally it drew back.

Glacier pounced, slamming a paw down on its jaw to hold it shut. Ragnar grabbed its tail in his forepaws. They held it there for a moment, as a strange whistling sound grew louder and louder. Then something struck the monster's back and detonated with a crack of thunder, blasting apart several bone plates and leaving an opening on its back. Ragnar lunged, and the Grimm went limp.

The Council dragon that had dropped the bomb was already shrinking back into a speck. With the Grimm gone, the street was eerily quiet. Glacier sat on his haunches and snapped at the dark flakes rising around them.

"Glacier," Whitley sighed, "please don't eat the Grimm smoke."

Oscar burst out laughing. Whitley glared at him, his arms folded. It was _not _funny. Even if it was easily the most absurd thing he'd ever said, and even if the fact that they were here in the first place was _ridiculous. _It still wasn't funny, and he did _not _crack a smile.

A startled yip drew both dragons' attention. Several blocks away, Specter had gotten into a wrestling match with one of the Lancers. Glacier scrabbled to his feet and took off, bellowing a challenge.

Whitley groaned and wrapped his arms around his stomach. All this mortal danger was making him nauseous.

* * *

Glynda strode through the smoke and chaos in Mistral's streets with a bag of medical supplies slung over her shoulder, following her ears to the wounded.

A dragon shrieked somewhere to her left. She jogged towards the sound, careful to keep an eye out for the Grimm. It was still a struggle to remember the danger they posed—she was used to thinking of Lancers as mild annoyances at worst, even in a swarm, but even one would be more than she could handle right now. And the River Dragons... well, those were a problem by anyone's standards.

But when she found the source of the noise, there wasn't a Grimm in sight. Instead she found a Council rider with a whip in his hand, and three dragons. One lay pinned under the other two. Glynda's eyes narrowed. The dark scales... that was Tar. Wearing a saddle, too, though there was no sign of a rider.

"What is going on here?" she snapped. Both free dragons snapped to attention—one was a vageuly familiar fire dragon that blinked at her with only one eye. The other she assumed was partnered with the Council rider.

"Trying to get a shot," the rider grumbled. "Whirlwind, _move."_

"Absolutely not." Glynda glanced towards the riderless dragon. He had something to do with Tai... ah, yes. "York, was it?"

He snorted and tossed his head in surprise.

"Well done." She rounded on the rider and held out her hand. "Your whip."

"What?"

"I thought it might be prudent to muzzle her."

"Oh." He held it out. "Wait. Fuck. I didn't agree to let you—"

She slapped the gun out of line when he tried to point it at Tar. "Make yourself useful and go shoot some of the Grimm."

He looked down at the weapon, then back at Tar. Glynda wound the whip around her muzzle, and York helped her pull it shut. That shouldn't have worked. _None _of this should have worked—her struggles were weak and sluggish despite the device.

"There's something wrong with that thing. Looks half-dead, but it almost gutted itself trying to get away from them. Fucker scratched me, too." He held out his arm. His sleeve was red to the elbow.

"Desperation is a funny thing," Glynda said tersely.

"You're taking them." He jabbed a finger at her. "You're taking them so you can set them on us again later."

Glynda rolled her eyes skyward. "The city is overrun by Grimm. _Prioritize." _ She smiled sweetly. "Unless you want to fight us, too?"

He eyed York nervously and lowered his rifle.

"Whirlwind, would you help us escort this dragon to the west? There's a carrier there that should be able to hold her." The wind dragon glanced at her rider, who groaned and nodded.

"There was someone else," he said, when they arrived at the carrier. "Just so you know."

"I noticed the saddle."

He flushed. "She got away before I could get a good look, but I'm pretty sure she had a dragon. Not this one—a little one."

Glynda dug a roll of bandages out of her bag and wrapped up his arm while York and Whirlwind wrestled Tar into the back of the ship. She fought doggedly every step of the way, right up until one of the stall doors closed behind her and Glynda shoved a rake into the door to keep it shut. Shoddy, maybe, but it seemed to work well enough when Tar was this weak.

"Shoot the Grimm," she reminded the rider, when he and Whirlwind left. He didn't reply.

It was because she was watching the sky that she saw it—a flash of movement off to the west, heading away from her. A glint of light by the dragon's head as it swerved around a Lancer. One of the pit dragons... but where was it _going?_ There was no wall that way, only the harbor.

No bombs had dropped there. The steel grate that blocked off the sea was almost as thick as the main walls, and regularly treated with Dust to keep it from weathering. A necessity when storms sometimes washed deep-sea Grimm out into the shallows. A few bombs wouldn't make any noticeable dent in it. Unless they knew where to find the gate to let out ships—and, more importantly, where the locking mechanism was. Then they might be able to get it open, but could they lock it open? She didn't think so... but that didn't mean it was impossible.

A bark behind her startled her so much she dropped the bag of supplies. York was staring at her, his head cocked to one side in concern.

"They're going after the harbor gate," she blurted.

He pondered that for a moment, then crouched down.

"Are you sure?"

Another bark.

Glynda dropped the bag—with no saddle, she didn't want to risk its weight pulling her off-balance. Then she slid into place behind York and pointed after the pit dragon. "That way."

He hesitated, and craned his neck to look over his shoulder. When he started to bark, she twisted around and found Quake, Salty, and Tempest winging towards them.

"Excellent," she said, giving him a pat. "Reinforcements."

* * *

Pit dug his claws into the side of a building, resting his head on its roof and panting with his tongue hanging out. Specter landed beside him to lick at a scratch on his hind leg, while Fang and Storm sat two stories below them in the street.

"Sorry," he managed, between breaths.

Specter nudged him with his nose. "It's okay. We needed a break, too."

"There's so many of them..." Pit's ears drooped as he stared up at the sky. There were more of the Grimm Blake had called Lancers—so many that it felt like every time he killed one, there were two more shooting their stupid stingers at him. One of them was still stuck in his side. Blake had told him not to take it out, because they were barbed and he would hurt himself worse. He hadn't known _anything _could be this annoying.

Specter looked up, too. Then he went stiff, his wings partly unfurled, his tail curling around his legs. "That dragon!"

"What dragon?" Fang put his paws up on the building and stood, stretching his neck towards them. "I can't see!"

Pit's eyes narrowed, and he scrabbled the rest of the way up onto the roof so that he could get a better look. It was hard to see the other dragon very well, but there was something about the way it flew...

It was headed their way. And the closer it got, the more sure he was. "It's her, isn't it? Strike."

Fang snarled and hurled himself at the wall, clambering just high enough to poke his head up over the edge of the roof. "Yeah," he agreed.

"What are we gonna do?" Specter blurted, his tail lashing anxiously. "If she's here then that means Cinder is, too!"

Fang bared his teeth. "Good," he growled.


	102. Blaze of Glory

**Happy Friday everyone! This chapter, Leo regrets absolutely everything and an evacuation in performed.**

* * *

**102\. Blaze of Glory**

* * *

Leo couldn't breathe.

Tyrian sat too close behind him with his tail curled around his waist, the point of the stinger resting almost casually against his back. Every downsweep of the pit dragon jostled them slightly, and he was faint with the fear that it would prick him by accident.

The new hatchling perched just in front of him. Watching him. Sweat beaded on Leo's forehead as he tried to look anywhere else except the ghost of the dragon his Savannah had died for.

"Here we are," Tyrian said cheerfully. His tail flexed, and Leo almost screamed.

Beneath them the harbor glistened in the fading sunlight, as the boats bobbed up and down. Almost pleasant, until he realized that the waves that jostled them came from a trio of River Dragons that paced back and forth beyond the metal grate. One tried to climb it, but its webbed feet were all wrong for climbing and it soon splashed back into the water.

"The gate is there." Leo's finger shook as he pointed. "And the locks are there, and there. It should open if you break them both." The original design had meant for it to open upwards, so that gravity would keep it shut even if the locking mechanism failed—but that would have meant it was always visible so long as it was open. A constant reminder that such defenses were necessary, which would only draw more Grimm. Leo had disagreed with the decision... but there was no changing it now.

Ozone took off with a Dust bomb held by a rope in her jaws. Leo squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want to see it happen, not when—

"Halt!"

His eyes snapped open. There were other dragons converging on them. He recognized Salty and Quake instantly, and it only took a moment more to place Tempest. The fire dragon was unfamiliar, but the voice of his rider was not.

"G-glynda!" He swallowed again. The stinger was still pressing against his back, and he didn't dare move. "I—that is—"

Ozone dropped the bomb. It went off in a blinding flash and a wave of heat that reached them even where they hovered, a hundred feet above the water. The Grimm hissed and thrashed in the water, sending churning waves crashing against the pier.

Leo wiped sweat off his face and whimpered, "I t-told you where to find it. Now would you please let me—"

"What the _fuck, _Leo?!" Qrow shouted.

Tyrian's tail tightened around him, and he let out a burst of laughter. "Let you go?" he asked, between giggles. "Oh, Leo. Such a poor choice of words."

He didn't even have time to scream before Tyrian flung him from the saddle. Leo spun in midair once, twice, each time catching a closer view of the frenzied River Dragons. One pressed itself against the grate directly below him, opening its mouth wide.

A lurch. Leo yelped and thrashed as claws closed around his arms. They vanished an instant later. He hit the water headfirst and flailed for a horrible moment, unsure which direction was up. Then his head broke the surface and he sputtered and gasped. He was going to drown, the River dragons were going to—

His arm struck something solid. It turned out to be a wooden post, part of the pier that jutted out into the water. Leo clung to it, gasping, until he could finally muster the strength to haul himself up out of the sea. He lay soaked and panting on his back, with claw-marks in his jacket and a tiny hole in the back of his coat.

He needed to go. He needed to run, now. The Grimm were coming, and the harbor wouldn't stay safe for long.

Tyrian had been right—his courage had died with Savannah.

* * *

Four against two, and one of the enemy was barely out of the shell. It should have been easy. And would have been, if three other dragons hadn't joined the fight on their side.

Tempest dove to catch Ozone between her forepaws before she could grab another bomb. She kicked and struggled, sparking every time her horns touched one of the older dragon's scales. It hurt, but she could hold her steady. The pit dragon, Diver if she remembered right, was skin and bones. He wouldn't last long.

Then the Council dragons joined in, and things got a lot more complicated.

They looked like they might be part of a team—every element except water was represented, and the dragons called out to each other with the familiarity of siblings. One, the fire dragon, swept towards Tempest.

"I have a shot!" the rider shouted.

"Hold!" their leader called back. "The wind dragon's with Ironwood, leave it alone."

"Shit, really? Where's the rider?"

Tempest hissed at him and held Ozone against her belly, where the Council riders couldn't try to shoot at her.

Diver wobbled in midair. Quake and York paced him, though more to guide him to a safe landing than anything else. He wouldn't let them help—he kept snapping at them and trying to climb higher, up until something in his left wing failed. It went limp, and the wind folded it flat against his body.

York grabbed his saddle, then flinched and dropped him when the faunus on his back tried to sting him. "Hey!" he yelped. "I'm trying to help you!"

Quake managed to get a hold of Diver's tail. He swung upside-down, his good wing still fluttering feebly. They dropped together towards the pier—and the hovering Council dragons.

"We've got it under control!" Qrow roared, waving at the riders. "Go deal with the Grimm!"

"The fuck's wrong with it?" their leader shouted back.

Diver hit the pier and collapsed onto his belly. When he tried to struggle to his feet, he lurched and started retching. A jet of water hit the pier and smashed a hole in the middle of it.

"No idea!" Qrow and Salty flew in between the Council and the pit dragon. "But it's not putting up much of a fight!"

It was true. Diver could hardly even lift his head. The lead rider glanced at him, then the still-struggling Ozone, and shrugged. "If you say so. There's a couple other dragons at large—let us know if you see 'em."

"Sure thing!" Qrow saluted at them, and held that position until they'd all turned around and headed in the other direction. Then he gestured rudely at their backs and guided Salty down to the pier.

Tempest grabbed Ozone by the back of her neck and held her in her mouth. She tasted oddly metallic, in a way that made her worry that she'd accidentally drawn blood. When she landed beside the pit dragon, the faunus was nearly frothing at the mouth.

"Get up!" he screamed. "Get up and kill them!"

Ozone squealed and renewed her struggles. Tempest had to pin her down against the pier to keep her from hurting herself—it reminded her unpleasantly of the pit dragons.

"You need to calm down and come with us," Glynda snapped. "Now. We can't promise your hybrid will stay safe if she's still here when the Grimm are repelled."

"Safe?!" He lunged at York, making him snort in alarm and rise up onto his hind legs. "Oh, yes. Safe!" He started to laugh. "That's _good!"_

"We can protect her," Tai added. "Her and the pit dragon. We're taking them back to Atlas to get them taken care of."

"Unless you want to get them both culled, and give the Council those _things."_ Qrow gestured at the helmet.

"They'll die!" the man snarled. "They'll all die! I'll have her reborn as many times as I have to until we put those _bastards _in the ground!"

"...What?" Tai twisted in his saddle to look at Qrow. "What's he talking about?"

Glynda pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just... see if Salty can knock him out without getting too close."

Ozone wriggled in Tempest's grip and howled when the jet of water struck her rider. "It's alright," she promised the little hatchling. "He'll be fine, we just need to carry Diver away from here."

She handed Ozone off to Quake, so that she, Salty, and York could try to lift Diver off the ground. He was still trying to attack them—he bit Salty's foreleg, but it was so weak it didn't even leave a mark. Tempest hooked her claws into his saddle and pressed her nose against his shoulder. "It's almost over," she promised. "We've got you."

* * *

They weren't going to make it. "Go!" Ruby shouted, waving frantically at the rest of her team. "Go ahead, we'll catch up!"

Storm's paws pounded against the street. They were armored all the way down to her toes—metal scraped and sparked whenever she hit a piece of rubble. And overhead, Cinder descended towards the Council headquarters. Even flying, there was no way the others would make it there before she did.

Or so she thought—until another dragon burst out from behind a nearby building and let out a bellow that almost knocked her off of Storm. Strike swerved hard to the side, just dodging Ragnar's outstretched claws. He roared again. When he launched himself at Cinder, Glacier emerged from behind him like a pale shadow.

Ruby didn't see much of what followed. The Council headquarters blocked her view of the sky, and she was too busy finding the hole her teammates had torn in the side of the building. Fang trotted out as she approached, surrounded by rumpled and trembling workers. Yang had dismounted—it was probably too tight in there for a dragon and a rider.

"P-please," one of the workers blurted. "I'm just an intern, I swear! The Council aren't even here, they left with a bunch of flight squads."

Yang opened her mouth to respond, but before she had the chance someone shouted, "Hey!"

Two dragons approached. Both had riders carrying whips, and the one in the lead pointed hers at Yang. "Stop right there! If you think we're going to let you—"

Specter emerged from the hole. There was a small child dangling by a backpack from his mouth, who he set gently on the ground beside Weiss. Then he looked over at the newcomers and barked once. Their dragons relaxed.

"We're trying to help," Ruby said. "This place isn't safe."

"Our orders were to make sure the building remains secure, and to keep everyone inside. Where there aren't _Grimm _everywhere," the Council rider snapped.

Somewhere above them, Strike let out an ear-piercing scream. A burst of flame struck a nearby building, shattering the windows and raining glass down on the street.

There was a long, horrified silence. Weiss broke it. "That was Cinder Fall. She thinks the Council are in this building. Do we _really _need to explain why it isn't a good idea to keep people here?"

The two Council riders exchanged a terrified glance. Then the leader urged her dragon into the building. "How many are still inside?"

"Nobody on the bottom floor," Yang said. "Our teammate is going up to the top, to let everyone know they should evacuate."

Ruby bit her lip. "Someone should tell her the Council are gone. That way she won't attack, right?"

"Maybe not." Weiss glanced up. "It's worth a try."

She and Specter took off. A moment later, Blake emerged from the building with more of the office workers. They were coming out now in a steady stream that Pit had to pick his way through.

Ruby waved Blake and Yang over. "Yang, can you go in and look for anyone we missed? Blake and I will stay outside, in case the Grimm start getting ideas."

Her sister nodded and jogged off, with Fang loping alongside her. One of the Council riders followed, though he left his dragon outside. "Guard," he said, and gestured at the people milling around. Then he, too, vanished inside the building.

* * *

The air was boiling.

Strike didn't even need to breathe fire—just the sight of her rider heated Ragnar's insides until they churned thick and hot like molten lead. He felt like a balloon, expanding in the heat until something ruptured and he opened his jaws and all the grief and hate came pouring out.

The hands on his back felt very distant and small, but they were enough. An anchor that kept him from charging in and grabbing Strike, and tearing and tearing no matter how much she hurt him until he could get at Cinder. Because if he did that, she would hurt Oscar.

She lunged. Fire swept under his belly and hit a nearby building, shattering the top floor and sending up a plume of smoke. Glacier dove at her. It was a clumsy maneuver that she dodged easily, and Ragnar had to charge in to keep her from sinking her teeth in to the ice dragon's throat. He slashed at her side, but he didn't even connect with her scales—she was wearing some kind of leather armor, almost like their riders did.

Ragnar retreated from Strike and grappled Glacier for a heartbeat, long enough to murmur, "Stay back and use your powers."

Then he kicked off, just in time to push them both out of the way of another jet of fire. Glacier seemed to take the advice to heart. He took care to keep out of range of the worst of the fire and left clouds of deadly mist for Strike to dodge. The weight of the armor made her clumsy—Ragnar couldn't understand what Cinder had been thinking when she put it on.

A shout interrupted them. Specter was approaching from the ground, coming within Strike's range. "Back!" Ragnar roared, too late.

"They're not there!" Weiss shouted. "The Council left! It's just office workers down there!"

Cinder's face twisted into a snarl. "Liar," Strike hissed, and launched a fireball.

Ragnar lunged forward to intercept it, but there was no need—Specter folded his wings and dropped out of the way, then caught himself a few dozen feet above the ground. Strike couldn't try again. Glacier pounced on her, with icy mist flowing out of his nostrils like trails of steam. Frost spread over the leather that covered her belly and sides.

"Go," Ragnar ordered Specter. "Your team needs you."

He didn't argue—the tip of his tail looked slightly singed.

Another shot of fire went wide. It had been aimed at Glacier, and it left Strike vulnerable from below. Ragnar swept in and collided with her, clawing at his shoulder to get a better grip. He slashed through a strap. The leather protecting her side came loose, revealing rows upon rows of metal canisters.

Cinder so close he could see her lip curl. "They'll pay. One way or another."

"They're not—" Oscar blurted. But Cinder wasn't listening. Strike wrenched free of Ragnar's grip, leaving great gouges in her sides, and folded her wings. She dove straight down, heedless of the cloud of mist Glacier breathed into her path. Then she slammed into the Council headquarters. The roof collapsed inwards. A heartbeat of stillness—and then, there was fire.

* * *

Heat rolled over Pit like a gust of desert wind. He heard rocks and bits of glass pinging against metal, and when he opened his eyes he saw that Storm had raised her good wing, sheltering the workers under her armor.

The building was gone. Smoke poured from the place where it had been. His stomach dropped.

"Fang!" Storm charged into the rubble. Pit darted after her, spreading out and looking wildly around. He could hardly see through the dark haze.

Then there was a chirp, and Penny announced, "Life signs detected!"

Storm sprinted over to one of the few walls that was still standing, half-buried in rubble. "Pit—"

"On it!" His freckles shone as he batted rocks aside, digging down until he hit a familiar red hide. He flinched when he touched his brother's side—his scales were hot to the touch, and streaked with soot so that they looked almost grey.

Storm and Specter helped dig, until they could finally see the steady heaving of Fang's breath. As soon as his wing was free, he lifted it to reveal a patch of ground untouched by the fire, a small crowd of office workers, and Yang.

Ruby jumped on her. She let out a little huff on impact as the wind was knocked out of her, but returned the hug.

"I'm okay," Yang wheezed, patting Fang's nose. Then she winced. "Gah, hot!"

Pit slumped with relief, and even nuzzled Fang's side. It was worth the minor burn on his nose. A head poked in between Specter and Storm, rumbling in concern.

"Ragnar!" Fang yelped, and tried to roll to his feet. He was stopped by one of their teacher's paws.

"Rest, young one," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't stop her."

Glacier chirped and tried to climb on Ragnar to see better. He grunted and wobbled under the sudden weight. "We shouldn't crowd him—"

Another dragon shoved his way through so that he could see. The Council dragon who had been left outside by his rider. Pit's heart sank.

"Ronan?" he asked, sniffing at the humans between Fang's paws.

Everyone went very quiet.

"My sensors aren't detecting any other life signs," Penny said gently. "I'm sorry."

The dragon hissed at her and trotted away, sniffing at the rubble. Then he barked and started to dig. Pit went to help him—so did Ragnar, and even Fang got to his feet and limped over. He was too sore to move any of the bigger rocks, but he could get rid of the ones Pit was affecting with his powers.

They didn't find any Council riders—only sleek black scales, striped in gold. And Strike, unlike Fang, wasn't breathing. Too close to the center of the explosion.

Ragnar made a noise deep in his chest and turned away. Glacier butted his head against his shoulder and whistled a few notes, while Oscar scratched the back of his neck.

The Council dragon kept digging. It was pointless—the only reason Fang had survived and been able to protect all those humans was that he was a fire dragon. Pit kept helping him anyway.


	103. Ashes, Ashes

**Hello again! I come bearing tired pit dragons, excited STRQ dragons, and a few conspicuous absences.**

* * *

**103\. Ashes, Ashes**

* * *

Atlas Dragonry's courtyard was filled with a sound like nails on a chalkboard. Occasional crashes and clangs. The crackling of flames. All coming from one small dragon carrier that sat in its center, shaking ominously.

"Well!" Peter clapped his hands together, prompting a hiss and another _bang _that almost knocked the ship onto its side. "Shall we open it?"

Scattered groans from the assembled riders.

Most of Cinder's loyal followers and their hybrids had surrendered after her death—the pit dragons had not. They'd been forced to wrestle the poor creatures away from the cities, and Council riders who might take too much interest in the devices, and follow Pietro's instructions to disable the devices.

In most cases they'd done it _before _carrying the dragons back to Atlas. The ones in the carrier, on the other hand... well, there had been more Council riders about than they'd expected, and they'd needed to get away quickly. Taking off the devices was not fast. So they'd flown them back, still in the carrier.

Now they just had to open it. Which felt a little bit like opening a jar of angry wasps, except that the walls were opaque and it was impossible to tell what was going on inside. Peter cleared his throat. "Glynda, if you would?"

She raised an eyebrow at the dragons that waited outside. Pepper, Steele, Glacier, and Ragnar were the only ones Peter knew. Others belonged mostly to Flight Squad members who had been injured in the past fight, and thus could be spared from the job of cleaning up the last of the Grimm. When all their eyes were on her, Glynda opened the doors.

Tar stumbled out with her teeth bared and aimed a bite at Peter. Pepper tackled her, and the courtyard descended into a tangle of flapping wings and flailing tails. It didn't last long, though—outside the chaos of battle, it was obvious that the pit dragons were hanging on by a thread.

"Would you hold her neck, my dear?"

Pepper obliged. Ragnar stepped in to assist her, and to pull on the metal plate whenever Peter tapped his foreleg. Between the three of them they soon pried off the cover that protected the inner electronics. Glynda stepped in, then, to do a lot of finicky work with a screwdriver. When torn off too quickly, the devices caused painful feedback for the dragons.

This was not true of the prototype Watts had used on Specter—a feature, not a bug.

"Shh," Peter murmured, as Glynda eased the machine off Tar's brow. "Easy, easy..."

Her tail jerked, knocking the wind out of him. Peter wound up flat on his back as Tar began to roar.

"Peter?" Glynda tugged him to his feet. "Are you alright?"

"Right as rain," he wheezed.

Tar wouldn't settle, no matter how much Pepper and Ragnar tried to reassure her. She tried to bite any rider that came close enough to touch her, and when they brought her food she slapped it away with such force that a haunch of venison broke one of the windows of the transport.

Diver, by contrast, went limp. Winter knelt by his head and tried to coax him to open his mouth. Eventually she managed to give him a little water wrung from a wet rag, but after that he was so unresponsive that Peter kept having to turn and check that he was still breathing.

"What do we do?" Oscar whispered.

"We keep trying," Peter said, clapping him on the back. "With a little patience..."

Eventually Tar exhausted herself. They tried offering her different foods until Glacier's ears suddenly perked up. He flew off, and returned half an hour later with a badger hanging from his jaws. Still struggling, which made Peter rather nauseous, but Tar took it. She couldn't finish the whole thing... but it was a start.

Ragnar lay down at Tar's side, draping a wing over her back. Glacier moved to join him, then stopped with one paw in the air when the older dragon barked at him. His head tilted quizzically, but he padded over to Diver and copied what Ragnar had done. Pepper sat between them, her ears perked tall, scanning the area for anything that might threaten them.

Steele, on the other hand, busied himself with the devices—more specifically, with the task of smashing them into so much useless scrap. Bits of metal, loose wires, and screws scattered in every direction as he tore into them, snarling and blasting whatever he could see with ice. By the time he was finished, Peter would have been hard pressed to find a single intact piece of circuitry.

It felt good to watch... but it wasn't the catharsis Peter wanted. For that, he would have to wait until Arthur Watts was found and brought in. One man couldn't possibly evade both Ironwood's forces and the Council—it was only a matter of time before he would answer for his crimes.

* * *

"Hello sweetie," Scarlet crooned, scratching Zircon under the chin.

Sage glanced up and blinked. There was a tray full of food practically in his lap, complete with a cup of coffee.

"I know you're not going to sleep," Scarlet explained, "since I already tried that hours ago. But you can at least eat." He sat down next to Sage so that their shoulders were touching. Nimbus greeted Zircon and then lay down with his wings folded.

"Thank you." He picked up a bit of toast and chewed mechanically. It was hard to feel very hungry when he'd just spent hours watching Riptide throw up.

She was asleep, now, at least. Curled up on her side, with Zircon hovering protectively near her head. The courtyard and grounds were dotted with dragons—most of them had reacted quite badly to the barns, even though there weren't any locks on them. Only a few had managed to keep any food down since they'd got here.

They were only waiting on one group's return—the riders who'd gone to Vacuo had a longer route back, and they'd been delayed even further by the Grimm. Scarlet saw them first and pointed, and when Sage followed his hand he saw three pit dragons hanging limp from makeshift harnesses.

Sage frowned. He'd thought there were five left—not counting Glory, who Mercury had mentioned Crucible had freed. Had he missed some of them returning? He tried to do a headcount, but the effort was wasted. Too many of them had wandered off into the woods or other parts of the Dragonry's campus.

He shook his head. There would be time to worry about that in a moment. "Riptide?" Nimbus nudged her side, and her eyes snapped open. "The rest of them just arrived. Do you want to go meet them?"

She bobbed her head weakly.

"Good." Sage walked around her, to where someone had left a bale of hay. "But you have to eat a little bit first, alright?"

Sage and Scarlet took turns feeding her handfuls of hay, until her eyes drifted shut and she wouldn't take any more. "That's good," Scarlet crooned. "Really good. C'mon, lets go see your brothers and sister."

She got to her feet and limped across the courtyard and onto the front lawn. Sage watched every step, flinching whenever she stumbled, itching to ask Zircon to help... but Professor Goodwitch had said that the pit dragons would need to keep exercising to rebuild their strength. He waited until Riptide started panting and said, "That's far enough. They should be able to see us from here."

Scarlet and Nimbus helped wave down the oncoming dragons. Sage knew for a fact that Brick, Kite, and Tallow, Riptide's siblings, hadn't come back yet—he'd looked. So when the riders approached, carrying Brick, Kite, and Inkwell... his heart sank.

"Scar," he said, quietly so that Riptide wouldn't hear. "We're still missing two of them. Tallow should be here."

Scarlet muffled a curse behind his hand. "I'll tell Ironwood."

Sage hesitated for a moment—but Kite was much too exhausted to start anything, and Zircon and Nimbus were still watching over the three of them in case something went wrong. "I'll go with you."

They found the General in his office, standing in front of a set of floor-to-ceiling windows and staring out across the Dragonry. "Sir?" Scarlet said. "We have a problem. Two of the pit dragons aren't back yet."

Ironwood's fists clenched. "It's worse than that. We're missing Doctor Watts."

Sage and Scarlet exchanged a frightened look. "You mean... he escaped?"

"He deserted, according to what we've managed to learn from captured rogues. Which isn't much. While we were focusing on getting the pit dragons out of sight, the Council snatched up the riders. All we know is that he left without permission, before Cinder made her move."

"We have to find him, then," Scarlet blurted. "He's the one who built the devices."

Ironwood sighed and sat down heavily in his chair. "Yes, we will. But since we have no idea where he might be, we're going to have to deal with the Council first. For now... get some rest. It doesn't look like there's going to be much more time for it until this is all over."

* * *

Ragnar paced. Back and forth across the courtyard, and then out into the woods when the sight of the emaciated pit dragons became too much to bear. He went round and round in circles for over an hour, because the smell of damp soil was soothing.

"Where are we going?" Glacier asked, after their eleventh loop around the same clump of trees. Ragnar paused to stare at him. Then he sighed and sat down, looping his tail around his paws.

"Nowhere."

Cinder killed Ozpin. Now Cinder was dead, and he'd been cheated of the chance to get revenge. But he wasn't angry. Just... empty.

Oscar slid off his back and knelt to pet his head. His tail thumped weakly on the ground, and he lolled onto his side so that his belly could be scratched. That was one silver lining to all this—he used to avoid doing things like that, since he was supposed to be setting a dignified example.

Once upon a time, he and Ozpin had rolled in the heather until they were covered with dirt, and no one had cared.

"At least she's gone," Oscar murmured. "Right?"

He let out a sigh that ruffled the boy's hair. "Rrrike."

Oscar's face fell, and he leaned over to wrap his arms around Ragnar's neck. He hummed and let his eyes drift halfway shut. In all the time he'd spent by Ozpin's side as he fought the Council, he'd seen his share of awful things. Cullings. The purge. Riders like Cardin. But this... Cinder _had _felt something for Strike. Or at least, she'd felt something for her dragon once, and it had twisted into whatever had made her sentence hatchlings to death for a chance to strike back at the Council. And yet she'd planned an attack that called for her death.

He opened one eye to look at Glacier. The ice dragon had apparently decided that here was as good a place as any to take a nap, and was curled up on his stomach with his tail tangled in a clump of bushes. _What happens to riders, _Ragnar wondered, _that makes them throw their partner away?_

At that, he had to shake himself. Whatever it was, he still had a job to do. He had to change things so that less humans and faunus like that got their hands on eggs, and so that hatchlings would be protected from them. He let out a little snort and relaxed into Oscar's belly scritches.

* * *

"Hey, um... are you okay?"

It took a moment for Whitley to respond to Oscar's question—and when he did he jumped, looking startled. "Oh. You're talking to me."

"Ragnar's asleep. I think?" His eyes were closed, anyway, and he seemed much more relaxed than before.

"Well. I'm... fine."

Oscar blinked. That might have been the least convincing lie Whitley had ever told.

"Are you sure?"

"Ugh." Whitley made a face at him. "Relatively fine. Happy? You should be, because I think it's better than could reasonably be expected considering we just went haring off into the most chaotic, _violent—_" He broke off into a splutter.

"Yeah," Oscar sighed. "That was... intense."

"Right. Let's go with that." Whitley huffed, blowing a lock of hair out of his face. "And hopefully never do _anything _like that _ever _again."

An awkward silence descended.

"Um... Whitley?"

"I _know. _Just let me pretend for a few minutes."

* * *

Salty didn't pay the call much mind at first. His ears flicked towards his rider, but he kept most of his attention on the grounds, and the sleeping pit dragons. Quake and Tempest paced around, checking on them and occasionally coaxing them into eating or drinking a little.

"You again," Qrow sighed.

He twisted his head around to look. The last person who'd called Qrow...

"Yeah, yeah." His rider rolled his eyes. If he was looking that exasperated, then it was definitely Raven. "We hit your stupid deadline. What do you want?"

Salty tried to bring his head close enough to the scroll to hear what was going on. He caught a snatch of Raven's voice, tinny and distant. "—going to make our move. Are you in?"

"We are," Qrow said. "But we can't exactly talk shop right now. You're going to have to get your asses over here."

He let out an excited bark before he could stop himself—right into the scroll. Raven sighed. Then there was another voice on the other end, even farther away than hers.

"Salty?"

"Phoenix!"

"Okay, okay!" Qrow pushed his head away, but he was laughing. "Look, if we're gonna coordinate we need to talk to you in person. They're still holed up in Vale, so it shouldn't be that hard to get here."

"Fine."

A frenzy of barking from his sister was cut off when Raven hung up the scroll. Salty couldn't keep his tail still—it kept wagging back and forth out of control. He charged off across the lawn towards Tempest and Quake.

"The Branwens are coming here!" He skidded to a stop. His tail still wouldn't keep still. He was going to see Phoenix! _Without getting attacked!_

Quake let out a triumphant roar and reared up on his hind legs. Even Tempest perked up and tracked down Qrow, sniffing at the scroll as if to demand that he call his sister back.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "She's not gonna pick up."

"I know," Tempest groaned, bumping her nose against his chest one last time.

Salty barked at her, and soon the three of them were chasing each other around the grounds like younglings. Quake almost bowled Tai over, prompting a yelp and a startled laugh. "What the hell's going on?" he shouted.

Qrow made a face. "Bandits incoming."

Quake panted happily into Tai's ear.

"Oh." Tai put on a queasy smile. "That's... just..." He put a palm over his face and muttered, _"Fuck."_


	104. Bonds

**So, if there's anyone left that doesn't want to murder Watts... uh...**

* * *

**104\. Bonds**

* * *

Kali had never been so glad that the other kingdoms tended to ignore Menagerie.

"—massive breach allowed hundreds of Grimm into Mistral. Damages were even worse in Vale and Vacuo, where the only support came from rogue riders and local militias. Atlas itself is undamaged, but Mantle's death toll may be higher than that of any other kingdom due to weaknesses in its walls..."

The holoscreen still cycled through the same four clips it had been playing for the past several hours. A Council rider lashing her whip around the tusk of a Goliath, Sabyrs swarming over Mantle's defenses like a living wave, Atlesian flight squads wrestling gigantic Blind Worms in Vacuo... and the explosion at the Council Headquarters in Mistral.

Kali hadn't been paying much attention. She'd left the news on while she made tea, just in case there was some new development. But she glanced up when she noticed a new clip. It was of the same incident, Cinder Fall's final act, but at a different angle.

It was gone in a flash, replaced with the standard clip. But Kali had caught a glimpse of _something, _right after the bomb went off. She stared at the screen, waiting, and sure enough the same video returned. Cinder's dive, Ragnar's howl of fury, and then a wave of fire that made the cameraman stumble. The view went sideways as the camera fell, revealing the silhouette of a massive dragon, and—

The blood drained from her face. "Ghira? Ghira!"

She lunged for the remote, but it was too late. Kali had to wait for it to come around again, while Ghira thundered down the stairs. "What is it?" he asked.

The news station had cut to the anchor. Kali swore and started flicking from channel to channel—most of them were still covering the disaster. _There!_ She lunged for the pause button.

There was no mistaking it, now that she knew what she was looking for. A small figure silhouetted by the explosion, stumbling back, then turning their head just so... hardly any of the face was visible, but Kali knew. After all this time, there was Blake—with a fully grown dragon, in the middle of an inferno.

She pointed, and Ghira sucked in a breath. "Is that—?"

They rewatched the clip over and over, but there was nothing more than they'd already seen—only those few frames of Blake backing away from the explosion before the footage cut off. Newscasters talked about lower casualties in Mistral... but they also talked about lives lost in the explosion.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, another clip began to circulate, this one of the aftermath of the bombing. The image was shaking along with whoever was filming, but they could catch glimpses of the same dragon that had been with Blake earlier. Its bulk blocked their daughter from view most of the time, but Kali spotted her twice as it crouched down to dig at the rubble.

All the tension rushed out of her in one exhale, and she had to grab Ghira's arm to steady herself. Blake was alive. She had a dragon, and she was... what? A rogue rider? Or had the White Fang decided to help?

Kali was still hovering over the holoscreen, scouring every second of footage for any sign of her daughter, when she heard a heavy thud somewhere outside. Ghira tensed. He approached the balcony slowly, crouched in a defensive stance. She followed him with a frying pan in her hand.

The door opened. Outside was dark and quiet, with no sign of any intruder. "Who's there?" Ghira demanded.

A dragon's head popped over the railing.

Kali and Ghira both stumbled back. The frying pan dropped from her hand—it would be useless against a dragon. Then a familiar voice hissed, "Brand!"

The dragon craned its neck over its back and grabbed something. There was a startled squeak that _definitely _hadn't come from a human or a faunus. When it swung its head back up over the balcony, there was another, much smaller dragon dangling from the first one's jaws. It dropped its passenger on the balcony and turned around again—this time to place Sienna Khan gently on their doorstep.

"What are you doing here?" Ghira asked warily. "I thought the White Fang had moved its operations out of Menagerie."

"It did." Sienna dusted herself off and glanced behind her. "Brand, stay there. And... try not to be too conspicuous."

The dragon, which was quite a bit bigger than most of the houses in Menagerie, tilted its head to one side as it considered that. Then it grabbed a few branches of a nearby tree in its mouth and pulled them closer to its body. Its bright orange body.

Sienna heaved a sigh and turned to face the Belladonnas. "Can we come in?"

'We' turned out to include the smaller dragon. It was a timid, twitchy little thing, and when it tripped over Kali's frying pan on the way in, sparks jumped.

She stared at it. "That's... not a normal elemental, is it?"

"No." Sienna moved into the hallway and leaned against a wall. "She was injected with lightning Dust. Not a hybrid, technically, but still illegal."

The dragon peeped and sniffed Ghira's hand. He pulled away with a wince and a little pop.

Sienna cleared her throat. "I'm sorry to barge in on you like this."

"It's no trouble," Kali assured her. "Would you like anything? Tea? Or, well, I don't know how long you've been flying. Are you hungry?"

"No, thank you."

Kali nodded. "Alright. Then let's cut right to the chase—why are you here?"

Sienna glanced at the dragon—_her _dragon. They really had done it, hadn't they? "I think you might have been right," she said bluntly. "About moving slower. Adam's path... it hasn't been going very well."

Ghira scowled. "I agree—but that isn't why you're really here, is it? He died a while ago."

She shook her head. "You aren't wrong, but that doesn't mean his methods have. We... we have an opportunity, right now. The kind he would have killed for." Another glance at the dragon. "But we've been losing a lot of members. Trustworthy faunus who abandon the cause. And..." She hesitated. "Dragons who abandon their riders."

"I've never heard of a dragon doing that."

Sienna tried for a wry smirk, but in one sentence it seemed like he'd aged her ten years. "That's because it's unheard of. At this point I have to wonder if it's not the ones who left that are the problem. I still don't agree with you on how the Fang should operate... but I can't deny that it's gone wrong. I need your help."

Ghira's eyebrows shot up. "Of course," he said.

"On one condition," added Kali. Sienna turned to her, suddenly guarded.

"Yes?"

"What. The _hell. _Happened to our daughter."

* * *

Sienna and the new faunus moved into the open air to talk. Flux trotted after them, wincing when she had to climb over the big metal pan that sparked whenever she touched it. There was no sign of Brand—not until she poked her head over the railing and found him curled up in a ball beside the house.

Her ears drooped. Harbinger said he'd been doing better than he was, since she and Gigas had hatched... but he hadn't been eating well since the attack. She watched him as his broad back rose and fell.

Kali cleared her throat. "Are you bonded to two dragons, then?"

Sienna looked away. "This is Brand. He belonged to Adam before he died." She leaned against the railing, staring down at the sleeping dragon. "Blake had... disagreements with him about how he was running things. Mostly the lab where he was trying to create new hybrids."

A hand came down to scratch Flux behind the ear. She purred and thumped her back leg against the balcony.

"What sort of disagreements?" Ghira demanded.

Sienna sighed. "I'm not sure. They didn't talk about it in front of other people very often, but things must have escalated because she disappeared about a year ago. Took one of the eggs with her, too. From there she ended up at Beacon, and after it was attacked... I'm not sure how, but she found us again. A group of former students and Professors showed up, wrecked the camp and arrested the Lieutenant. From there, I honestly have no idea. I haven't seen her since."

"We saw her on the news," said Kali. "She was in Mistral, fighting."

"That was Ironwood's group, then. Winter Schnee was one of the riders who attacked us, and she's with him. Blake's probably in Atlas right now."

Flux's ears perked up.

"Brand," she hissed. "Brand! Wake up!"

He snorted and cracked one eye open. "What?"

She turned back to the three faunus and gestured with her tail for him to listen.

"Atlas..." Kali glanced at Ghira.

"That's part of the favor I wanted to ask you both," Sienna went on. "Cinder is gone, but the way things are going we're still going to have a war on our hands. Some of us see it as an opportunity, to play both sides against one another and then defeat the winner once they're exhausted."

Ghira's back straightened. "Inviting the Grimm onto all our doorsteps."

"Exactly. And, frankly? The Council are in a weak position right now, but that's going to change very quickly once they start forcing new riders through. If this drags out, they'll win." Sienna scowled. "So it comes down to a choice between two unappealing options. And... as much as it kills me to say this, I'd rather take my chances on Ironwood and his collection of Schnees."

"Would you?" Kali raised an eyebrow. "That's new."

Sienna's lip curled. "It's not as if I _like _it. But they're the ones upsetting the status quo, so they're the ones who are going to make serious changes once this is all over if they get their way. And I'd like to be able to push some of those changes."

Ghira nodded. "I see."

"I don't." Kali narrowed her eyes at Sienna. "There's something else going on here."

Sienna glanced down at Flux, then out over the railing. "It's the least worst option. That's all."

"Mm."

"What was that favor you wanted, then?" Ghira asked. "You know we aren't riders."

"No... but I would guess you want to go to Atlas." Sienna gestured at Brand, who watched the exchange through slitted eyes. "Someone has to make the offer. I don't trust them enough to put my neck on the line, but you two left the movement early. They have nothing to hold you on, and if they want to keep your daughter happy they'll have to treat you well. All I'm asking is that you pass what I've told you on to Ironwood."

The Belladonnas exchanged a look. Then Ghira stuck his hand out, and Sienna shook it.

Brand huffed steam. "I'm not going to Atlas," he said, shutting his eyes. "Especially not with three people."

Flux jumped over the railing and landed on his back, to startled exclamations from the Belladonnas. "Brand!" she whined. "Didn't you hear them? Blake went to Atlas! And the Schnees, and all the riders that attacked us! And you know who else?"

His head came up.

"Gigas!" Sparks jumped between her feet and his scales as she darted up and down his spine. "We know where he is and we can get him!"

"Stop that," he grunted, and she hopped back to the ground. Brand rose to his feet and stretched. Muscles stood out in his hind legs and chest, and his wings flared wide. "You're right." The grass under his feet began to smoke. "We do..."

"Of course," Sienna said, to something one of the Belladonnas had asked her. She led them closer to Brand and helped Kali into his saddle. "It's a peaceful mission."

Brand stood up and rolled his shoulders, getting a feel for the extra weight on his back. "To hell with peaceful," he snarled, his eyes bright and alive in a way Flux had never seen them before. "We're going to get him back."

* * *

"This is _insanity," _Corsac snarled. "Our inner circle _cannot _have been _half traitors."_

"Sister Sienna told us she needed to think. Perhaps if we give her time—" Fennec tried to say, but his brother cut him off.

"Time? Time to do _what, _exactly? We gave Sister Ilia plenty of time to bring a Schnee to our doorstep!"

Harbinger whined and bumped his nose against Corsac's back. He hated when his riders fought...

"It's only been a day, brother. For all we know she—" He stopped, and Harbinger's ears perked up at the sound of wingbeats. They all hurried out of the tent, to find Brand landing near the back of the camp.

There were three faunus on his back.

"What has she done?" Fennec hissed, his ears going back.

Corsac waved off the other Fang members that had started to gather round, and waited until they'd dispersed before he strode out to meet the newcomers. "Brother Ghira. Sister Kali. This is certainly a surprise." He leveled a ferocious glare at Sienna. Harbinger inched behind Fennec, but he stopped trying to hide when Flux leaped from Brand's head and glided towards him.

"Corsac. Fennec." The big man nodded down at them.

"With all due respect..." Corsac's tail twitched. "Why are you here?"

"My invitation," Sienna interjected, and slid from Brand's back.

Corsac flashed a false smile and then dragged her off to the side, out of easy earshot.

"Why weren't we informed of this?" Fennec demanded.

"It was... a spur of the moment idea. I'm sure you heard that Cinder has already fallen."

"While _we _sat idle because two thirds of our dragons were gone."

"She wouldn't have lasted long," Sienna said firmly. "It was over the moment that footage was leaked. And instead of trying to make progress or protect her supporters, she did whatever she could, sacrificed _everything, _to do as much damage as possible." Her mouth twisted into a scowl. "It didn't work very well."

Corsac's whole body went stiff with anger. "What do you suggest then?" he gritted out. "Since you seem to have appointed yourself our new leader."

"We can't keep this fight going. The longer it lasts, the more certain it is that the Council will win." Sienna shrugged. "It seems to me that our best bet is the side that already plans on making changes. I think we should help Ironwood."

Fennec scoffed. "You want to use our forces, our dragons, to oust the Council? In favor of Ironwood and his two Schnees?"

"It's that, or throw our lot in with the Council."

"No," Corsac said flatly. "The window of opportunity may have narrowed with Cinder's death, but it hasn't closed. We can still play them against one another and draw out the conflict while we grow our strength."

Harbinger felt a sharp pain in his tail, and yelped. Flux had grabbed it in her teeth and was tugging him towards Brand. "What are you doing? And what's going on? Why is Sienna trying to help humans?"

"It doesn't matter," Flux said. "Come on! We know where Gigas is!"

"What?!"

"All those riders with Ilia took him, right? Sienna knows where they are now! And she wants to go there!"

Harbinger's wings flared. "But—why? Wouldn't she have said something earlier?"

"I don't know." Flux gave his tail another yank. "Hurry _up!"_

He took an involuntary step towards Brand. "But—but—who are the Council? Who's Ironwood?"

"Who _cares?!"_

Harbinger blinked. If in a couple of days, he and Flux and Brand could be exactly where Gigas was... he supposed it didn't really matter who any of these people were. Plus, there were supposed to be Schnees there. Fighting Schnees was good, right?

He barked for his riders' attention. "Go," he said.

"No," snapped Corsac. "We're staying here. If Sister Sienna wants to sell out to _them—"_

Harbinger put his ears back and whined.

"I know you want to help Flux," Fennec said, scratching under his chin, "but we have work to do." He shot another glare at Sienna. "We can't do very much without Brand, but it's better than serving another human. Look where _that _got us last time."

He dug his paws into the ground. "Go."

"You stubborn—" Corsac snarled. "You're staying here, and that's _final."_

Harbinger hesitated. He didn't want Corsac to be angry at him... but what if he didn't go, and one of the little ones got hurt?

What if he went, and came back with Gigas, and the Albains didn't want him anymore?

"It's alright," Fennec promised. "Brand will keep them safe." His ears twitched, like they used to when Harbinger was very small and he would say the smell from the lab was only Dust. Like they did when he was lying to make him feel better.

"Nno!" Harbinger took a mouthful of his shirt and tugged.

"Brother." There was a warning in Corsac's voice.

"I'm sorry, but we need to stay."

Harbinger tried not to look at Flux. But then she made a little noise, and he did it anyway, and it felt like he'd just swallowed a lump of clay. He remembered, of all things, _her. _The way her pale eyes had bored into him as she hissed, _"Choose."_

Fennec and Corsac would be safe when he came back. Gigas and Flux might not.

He took one step towards Brand and Flux. Then another. The great fire dragon snorted and reared up onto his hind legs, his eyes very wide. Harbinger hesitated. Had he done something wrong?

"I'm sorry!" Flux cringed away from him. "I didn't mean to..."

"Com... back," Harbinger promised.

"Wha—" Corsac's eyes narrowed. "Don't you _dare!"_

He whimpered and hid behind Brand. The older dragon shook himself out of his shock and pawed the ground. Eager to be gone. Sienna had already swung into the saddle.

"Wait!" Fennec shouted. Harbinger flattened himself onto his belly. He wasn't sure if he could still go if Fennec asked him not to... yelling was scary, but disappointment was much worse. But Fennec didn't run at him—he darted into the tent and came back with Harbinger's saddle.

His ears stood up in delight. "Ffen?"

"Brother?" Corsac made a grab for his arm. "What do you think you're _doing?"_

Fennec shrugged him off. His answer was too quiet to hear from where Harbinger was—but it made Corsac's fists clench.

"He isn't _yours," _he spat.

Fennec stumbled back. He was still clutching the saddle, but he wasn't moving at all. Harbinger crept forward and nudged him with his nose.

"Mmine," he said firmly. Then he touched Corsac's chest. "Mine."

And, while both were still standing there, gaping at him, he grabbed the saddle from Fennec and walked away. He heard muttering between them, then footsteps. Fennec caught up to him and strapped the saddle onto his back.

"It's alright," he promised. "He'll be waiting when we get back. And then... there are some things he and I—" He stopped. Coughed. "All of us... need to work out."

Harbinger bobbed his head. That was all Brand needed—he took off with a lot of heavy flapping, while Flux hesitated on the ground.

"I'm really sorry," she said again.

"It'll be okay." Harbinger touched her nose, wincing only a little at the shock. "Let's go rescue Gigas."

* * *

The cage was small.

There hadn't been a cage in the other place.

Why was it in a cage?

Why didn't matter. Why never mattered.

A door opened. A tiny _skip-tap _in its chest, and a twinge of _love-fear-longing._

Doctor Watts entered. Its gaze stayed fixed on the bars of the cage. He made his rounds, walking slowly around the perimeter of the room. And there, the sound of his shoes on the linoleum. That little _tak._ The perfect sound.

The shoes came closer. Then they stopped, just a foot away. Too far. Its neck didn't extend towards him. It wasn't disappointed—it had learned by now not to expect it to.

He bent down. His eyes burned like they always did. It met them steadily, without so much as a twitch.

Watts clicked his tongue. Its wings opened, letting him examine the membrane and joints. Its forepaws stretched forward to show its claws. Its mouth opened, tongue poking out.

Another noise. A little, "Hm," in the back of his throat.

It had never heard that noise before, but it knew it was a bad one. Sick, heavy dread in its stomach. Watts pulled on a pair of gloves and reached into the cage. The bad feeling faded at the touch of latex on scales, replaced by warm contentment.

The warm feeling vanished the instant its mouth closed on his hand. There was a sharp pain at the corners of its jaws that built and built until finally they opened again. The same pain that always came when it ate. "Another defect," Doctor Watts said into his recorder. "It's only one of the Wind and Water hybrids, so I suppose it could have been worse. Still. I'll have to see about replacing it when I have the time."

He cast one last, cursory glance into the cage.

"Right now, we can't afford to be too picky."


	105. Belladonna

**Hello folks! Have some shenanigans!**

* * *

**105\. Belladonna**

* * *

It happened because of the pit dragons.

They needed a lot of attention and help, and none of them would go in the barns—except for Tumbleweed, who was in the other earth barn, anyway. And, since almost everyone was busy making sure they were eating and sleeping alright, there was only ever a scattering of dragons left over to keep watch over Gigas and Ursan.

So when roaring and pained howls erupted outside, getting louder by the second, dragons poured out of the barn to go see what was going on... leaving them alone. Except for the human named May who lived in the stall next to theirs.

"Now," Ursan murmured.

Gigas knew what to do—Ursan had been whispering to him about it for a while. He'd said it was very important that he could do it right, and quietly.

The lock jiggled. "Slower," Ursan urged him. "Keep steady."

It was hard. His rider knew how to open locks like this, but he'd never done it with powers like Gigas had to. Not to mention he'd only practiced it a few times, in the dead of night. He stood up on his hind paws to get his head closer to where the padlock was. _Click... click..._

The lock fell open. Gigas carefully lifted it free of the door and let it drop to the ground. He dropped with it, right onto his belly with a little thump. He'd never concentrated that hard on anything in his life. His brain felt like mush.

"C'mon," Ursan whispered, tapping him under the chin. "Up. No telling how long before they come back."

They tried to open the door quietly, but the hinges squeaked. There was a rustling sound from May's stall. "What's going on?" she mumbled.

Ursan was silent.

"Oh. You're leaving."

They both tensed. Would she shout for the other humans? But May only said, "Bye, Gigas."

He tapped his tail against the door of her stall, because he didn't dare bark. Then they went out through the back of the barn and into the dark. He was struck by the sight of the stars—he hadn't been out at night since he could still fit through the little door in the stall. Ursan led the way as they crept behind the water barns, then doubled back to avoid a pit dragon that lay sprawled on the lawn in their path.

Ursan started to breathing hard. Gigas rumbled softly and nudged him, his ears drooping when he realized his rider was cradling his bad arm. It was getting better, and it didn't smell funny anymore, but it still hurt him sometimes.

They slipped past the water barns on the other side. There were only the fire barns, now, the woods were almost in reach—

Two shadows emerged from between the barns, right in their path. Gigas skidded to a stop with his nose about six inches away from Harpy's chest. He twanged in alarm, then backed up... and noticed Justice right beside her.

Silence, except for Ursan's muttered curse.

"Um," said Gigas.

Justice snorted. "If you want to leave, I didn't see you." He promptly wandered back the way he'd come.

Harpy watched him, her head tilted to one side. "You promised."

Gigas' tail twitched nervously.

"I promised." She turned her bright eyes on Ursan, who flinched and clutched his arm. And with that, she melted back into the shadows.

Ursan let out a lungful of air and sagged where he stood. "Damned thing keeps popping up out of nowhere," he grumbled.

Gigas barked reproachfully at him.

"Sorry." Ursan took a tentative step forward. "Let's go."

But Gigas hesitated. He glanced into the place between the fire barns where the older dragons had disappeared. "Harpy?"

Two yellow spots appeared in the dark. Ursan jumped and almost fell over backwards, swearing viciously under his breath. "Little one," she said, and stepped into the fading daylight.

"Are you and Justice still going to fight again?"

"Yes."

Gigas hesitated. His paws kneaded the ground as he thought, and his wings fluttered anxiously. He wanted to go and find Flux and Harbinger, but he didn't want Harpy or Justice to get hurt either. The dragons in the White Fang were safe—they had Brand protecting them, and he couldn't imagine anyone beating Brand. But if Harpy was right about the Council... they were hurting little hatchlings, and they were _dangerous._

He whined and paced in a little circle, his tail drooping. Ursan tensed. "What?" he demanded. "Is someone else coming?"

Gigas sat down on the ground.

Ursan groaned. "Come on. We have to go, _now. _They'll notice we're missing in a minute."

He put his head down and buried it under his paws.

Ursan knelt down next to him. "What is it?"

He hesitated. He hadn't tried to do any human words yet, and it seemed hard. But he pointed his nose towards Harpy and barked.

Ursan made a noise, like he had almost laughed or screamed in frustration, or maybe both. "You're worried about _that _thing."

Gigas bobbed his head.

His rider rubbed his nose. "Don't be. Pity the poor bastard that has to fight it."

Harpy let out a little hiss that made him flinch again. "Stop that," Gigas insisted. She blinked at him, then huffed and lay down on her side. That had to make her a _little _less scary to Ursan, didn't it?

His rider was quiet. Then he pressed a palm to his face and said, "You want to stay, don't you."

Gigas barked agreement.

Ursan heaved a sigh and got to his feet. "Is this about the fight coming up?"

Another bark.

"I can't promise we'll get another chance like this afterwards," Ursan warned him. "Are you sure?"

Gigas twanged joyfully and _almost _jumped on his rider. He remembered just in time that he was too big for that, now—so he jumped on Harpy instead. She rolled onto her back and snorted indulgently at him. "Go," she said, and gave him a nudge.

Ursan edged closer, then stopped when Harpy looked at him. "Come on," he told Gigas. "We need to get back before someone notices we're gone."

* * *

Brand's chest was on fire. The pain flared every time he flapped his wings, shooting all the way down to their tips. He hadn't ached this badly since he'd first learned to fly with a rider... but it wasn't the time to think about that.

He landed heavily in a small wooded area on the outskirts of the Dragonry. Out of sight of the main buildings, like Sienna had wanted. Then he waited for the three faunus to dismount.

"This is where we leave you," she said, inclining her head towards them. "And thank you again."

Harbinger reached behind himself and started tugging Fennec loose from his saddle. Sienna wasn't even strapped in—Brand only had to pick her up and deposit her beside the Belladonnas.

"What are you doing?" Fennec demanded.

Sienna patted his side and asked, "Do you need to rest?"

He whuffed and raised his head to look towards the main buildings. Gigas would be kept somewhere secure. The barns? Brand wasn't sure if they locked or not. He didn't even know what most of the buildings were for, or whether Gigas and the Lieutenant would be together.

They'd have to try to sneak around as long as they could. He was too big for that to work forever, but there were too many of the enemy to just—

"Flux!" Harbinger barked, and lunged at her. Too late. She was already tearing off through the trees, and it was all Brand could do to keep up with her. How was she moving so fast with such short legs?

"What?!" Sienna started to run after them. "No! Stop! _Flux!" _But the faunus didn't have a hope of keeping up, and before long Brand couldn't even hear them anymore.

"We have to be stealthy!" Harbinger tried to pounce on Flux, but she slipped between his front paws. "There might be guards, or—"

The trees ended. Brand and Harbinger skidded to a stop, but Flux was moving too fast. Her momentum carried her straight into the side of a sleeping dragon. She slammed into it, sending sparks flying, and then scuttled backwards.

She was an earth dragon, and she had been big once. Marbled pink and white scales hung loose under her belly and neck, where muscle and fat had melted away. He could count her ribs. But she burst into motion the instant she was touched, rolling to her feet and slashing out in a panic. The only thing that kept Flux from being hurt was that she had been aiming at an opponent closer to her size—the dragon's claws passed harmlessly over her head.

A growl started low in her chest. She moved ponderously, now, like there was something heavy pressing down on her back. Brand edged away, and snapped at Harbinger and Flux to get them to do the same.

"We're sorry!" Harbinger blurted. "We, um, didn't mean to wake you up."

Her roar was shaky and hoarse, like it had been a long time since she'd used it. But Brand could see other dragons sleeping in the field nearby picking up their heads.

"Go," he snapped at the young ones. "I'll distract them."

Both tried to protest at the same time. He snarled and lashed out, forcing them to back up to the edges of the forest. "Stay down," he ordered, "and stay hidden. Smell him out." This time, instead of arguing, they disappeared into the brush.

Brand squared his shoulders and turned to face his opponent.

Opponents.

Six of them, if he counted the ones across the field that were coming towards him.

His ears went flat. Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea...

* * *

At first, Flux could try to track the fight by the roars and shrieks that could be heard, even when they'd left the field behind to dart between buildings, hiding in the shadows wherever they could. But before long it was impossible to tell Brand's cries from the others. And there were a _lot _of others.

"Why are there so many of them outside?" Harbinger groaned. His eyes darted frantically back and forth as he slipped between two gigantic buildings, then edged away from a pathway where the light of the lamps might give them away.

Flux didn't answer. She sniffed the air, her neck straining as she tried to get a little bit closer to... to...

_Gigas!_

At the first scent of her brother, she streaked towards him like a heat-seeking missile. Heedless of the noise she was making, or whoever might see her, or Harbinger's frantic whisper. "Flux!"

She pelted around a corner. There he was—he'd stopped to sniff the air, but he was looking in the wrong direction and then she was almost on top of him and then, _impact._

They rolled over one another, bounced down a small hill, then came to a sudden stop when they struck something solid.

Very solid.

And warm.

She struggled to untangle herself from Gigas, then looked up. And up. And up, until she finally met the eyes of one of the dragons that had invaded their camp. The one that stole her brother. His traitor rider was there with him, and the ice dragon, and the two others.

"Eep!" Flux shrank back... then stopped. No—this wasn't the time for being scared of the enemy. Even if the enemy was much, _much _bigger than she was, and she and Gigas were outnumbered two-to-one. This was a rescue mission! So she hissed and flared her wings menacingly.

"...Hi?" He blinked at her in bemusement, then bent to study her closer. She swiped at him and zapped his nose. He pulled back. "Hey!"

"Wait!" Gigas barked. "That's Pit! He's nice, he told me all about—"

A roar from behind them made them both twist to look over their shoulders. Harbinger came charging towards them, his wings spread wide. "Get away from them!"

"But—" Gigas started to say. Harbinger leaped over them and crashed into Pit's side, sending them both sprawling. The traitor rider ducked under their flailing tails as they wrestled on the ground. The other dragons converged on Harbinger, ready to gang up on him.

Flux let out her most fearsome battle cry. It sounded a bit more like a squeak than she'd intended.

* * *

The plan, after Harpy left Gigas, had been to find whatever fight was causing all that noise. So of course, only moments after he got out of her sight, she started hearing roars and shouts back the way she'd come.

She turned on a dime, slipping between buildings until she found the source of the commotion. And by then, half of one of the fire barns had collapsed.

At least three dragons were wrestling together in one giant ball, crashing into the side of the building and kicking out in every direction. The ground had sunk into what looked like a gigantic mud pit, and the barn had sunk with it, listing heavily to one side. Its front wall was covered in ash, and would probably be on fire right now if it hadn't been built to withstand elemental attacks like that. And, nearer to Harpy, the ground had gone from mud to dirty slush, while little Gigas was trying to pin...

"Flux?"

She froze. So did her brother. Both blinked up at Harpy like they'd just been caught stealing treats out of their riders' pockets.

"Stay," she told them, and trotted towards the bigger fight. She spotted the Lieutenant, who was trying to keep himself between Specter, Storm, and the two brawling hatchlings. And Justice, who looked like he'd just shown up like she had. He huffed in exasperation and dove into the main fight, dragging Harbinger away from Fang and Pit.

"Everybody _stop," _he roared.

Flux twitched. Harpy reached out with a back paw and gently pushed her down.

The Lieutenant wiped mud off his face, swayed, and fell down on one knee, clutching his bad arm. Gigas yelped, "Ursan!" and sprinted over to push his face into his rider's chest. Pit sat back onto his haunches, looking guilty.

Harbinger glanced at Harpy, then Justice, and bared his teeth. "We're taking Gigas back."

"Huh?" Gigas poked his head over the Lieutenant's shoulder.

"He's my brother!" Flux pounced on him. "Mine!"

Gigas winced a little when she shocked him, then licked her nose. "Yeah!" he said. Then, "Wait, what are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you." She shot Pit a baleful glare.

His ears went back. "I _told _you, no one's trying to hurt him. You didn't have to bite me."

"You attacked our camp!"

"And you hurt Blake!"

Everyone started trying to talk at once—Justice explained that Gigas had decided to stay despite the fact that no one was listening, Flux tried unsuccessfully to menace Pit, Specter and Fang started talking about the Council while Storm called out to Gigas and Harbinger started growling—

Harpy reached out to the wall of the fire barn and scraped her claws down its side. The noise it made set every dragon and rider clutching at their ears and stopped all other noise cold. "Gigas goes where Gigas wants," she said, and sat down. Waiting.

He wilted under all the attention. "Um... I want to help. With the Council."

"Oh!" Flux blurted. "Sienna mentioned that! What even is it, anyway?"

There was a shocked silence.

She shrank behind her brother. "I stopped paying attention when she mentioned Gigas," she admitted. "Wasn't it something about—"

Another roar cut them off. They were the same ones Harpy had been hearing for almost twenty minutes, now. Her hackles rose, and Harbinger's eyes went wide with horror.

"Brand!" he blurted.

Harpy tensed. Justice glanced at her, and she jerked her head towards the sound. "Go. I guard. Explain."

He darted away, followed by Pit and Specter, while Fang and Storm stayed back to watch Harbinger. Flux followed the action with her tail twitching anxiously. But Gigas kept nudging her until she was distracted, and chattering cheerfully about the Council.

"They're bad," he proclaimed. "Really bad. But that means we can all help fight them, right? Ursan wanted to leave, but I couldn't go when Justice and Harpy—Harpy's the big one! Her new human named her—anyway, they want to fight and it's dangerous and scary, so I have to stay and help! And I thought you and Harbinger were safe in camp with Brand, but if you're here that's even better!"

Harpy exchanged a slightly exasperated glance with Specter and Storm, and put a paw on Gigas' back so that he stopped talking.

"Complicated," she warned him. "But... we can try."

* * *

"What's going on?" Blake shouted, as Pit and Specter sprinted towards the sounds of dragons fighting. "Wasn't that the hatchling from the White Fang camp?"

Instead of answering, Pit barreled out from between two barns and charged down a hill. The pit dragons that had been sleeping were up, flaring their wings and snarling, and even taking swipes at another dragon in their midst. One that looked healthy only by comparison to all of them.

"Brand!" Blake slid off Pit's back before he'd even come to a stop, stumbling as she rushed to put herself between him and Granite. "Both of you, st—"

She didn't see which pit dragon it was. She only felt a tail collide with her stomach, and the next thing she knew she was on her back, struggling to breathe. Brand screeched in fury, and Pit let out a roar that cowed a few of the pit dragons.

Only a few. Definitely not Granite, who couldn't even hear him.

Hands came down on Blake's shoulders. She looked up, expecting Weiss, and had the wind knocked out of her a second time.

"Blake! Blake, honey, are you alright?"

"M-mom?!"

She noticed for the first time the solid presence at her back, and turned her head to find her dad, kneeling next to her on the ground. Her mouth fell open. "What—how did you—?"

A roar forced her attention back to the dragons. Weiss was having only slightly better luck than she had with calming Granite, though she managed to get Brick and Riptide to move away from Brand. Pit growled over her shoulder at Kite—she was probably the one who'd knocked Blake over, then. Justice, meanwhile, wrestled Dusk away from Brand, which would have ended _horribly _if she hadn't been nearly comatose after she'd been freed from Cinder's control.

And there, in the middle of the chaos, stood Sienna Khan.

"What are you _doing?" _Blake burst out, the second she had her breath back. "Did you bring him here?"

Sienna, who looked like she'd been trying to soothe Brand without coming inside his reach, turned her head. "We weren't supposed to be this close," she said, shooting an irritated glare at the dragon.

"They're supposed to be resting!" Blake gestured at the pit dragons. "Just—help me get him to back up. They'll calm down easier if they can't see him."

Brand dug in his heels when she approached him, and kept craning his neck to look at the main part of the Dragonry. "The dragons who came with you are safe," she promised, giving him a gentle push to get him going. "They're with Gigas."

At the mention of the hatchling, Brand finally relaxed and let them lead him away. In his absence most of the pit dragons slunk off to go back to sleep. Dusk collapsed where she stood, her chest slowly rising and falling, a row of scratches across her nose bleeding sluggishly.

"Just _what _is going on here?" Weiss demanded, rounding on Sienna. "And what _exactly _were you hoping to gain by starting a fight with a bunch of dragons that are _trying _to recover?" Then she finally seemed to realize who she was talking to, and stopped. Specter crept up behind her, mantling his wings in a silent warning.

Blake wanted to say something, but it felt like anything she said would be the spark that caused the explosion. The tension built—

"Blake!"

And shattered in an instant, as Kali wrapped her in a fierce hug. An instant later she felt her dad's arms around them both. She was too shocked to respond at first, but after a moment she melted into the hug.

A curious bark roused her. Pit poked his head over her shoulder and sniffed at them both, his eyes lighting up with excitement. Before she could stop him, he stuck his tongue out and licked her dad's face. He blinked a few times, his hair hanging wet and limp across his forehead. Then he started to laugh.

"It's true, then?" Kali reached out to touch his flank. "He's yours?"

"Y-yeah." Blake felt like she'd just fallen into a dream—nothing made sense. "I don't—how did you get here?"

Brand snorted and arched his neck, the picture of draconic smugness.

"And how did you know... how..." She trailed off. It was getting difficult not to cry.

Her mom kissed the top of her head. "We saw you on the news. Then Sienna came by, and... we wanted to make sure you were alright."

That asked more questions than it answered.

"Why is Sienna here?" Blake twisted around to look at her, and found that she and Specter were still in a silent stand-off.

"Oh!" Her mom backed up, grinning. "I almost forgot. Since she and Brand gave us a lift, we should probably fulfill our end of the bargain."

"She wanted our help delivering a message," Ghira added. "Though it looks like it might be easier to talk to the General directly, at this point."

Sienna scowled. "I suppose the damage is already done," she said, through gritted teeth. "I'm here to offer you a truce, and help if you want it. From Brand, and two hybrids."

"The ones you created in that slaughterhouse you call a lab?" Weiss asked coldly.

"Pit was injected there, too," Sienna snapped. "And it didn't look to me like Ironwood was being _picky _about his allies."

Kali heaved a sigh. "You'll have to tell us all about this handsome fellow later," she sighed, giving Pit a pat on the nose that made him thump his back paw against the ground. "It looks like it'll take some doing to smooth this one over."


	106. Game Faces On

**Hello, and happy Friday! Here's a chapter starring Schnee family drama, Raven Branwen as herself, and Kali "these are my children now" Belladonna.**

* * *

**106\. Game Faces On**

* * *

"Sienna. _Sienna."_

Fennec grabbed her wrist. "What are you doing? This is our chance to _leave, _they won't waste riders chasing us."

She pulled away from him, a little more roughly than she needed to... but she wanted an outlet for her frustration. "I know that, Fennec." It was the morning after there arrival in Atlas—and the dawn of the attack on the Council. Of course they weren't Ironwood's priority.

"There's no pardon in this for us."

"I was in the same meeting that you were," she snapped. Ironwood had thanked them—but he'd made a point of saying that their help wouldn't erase what they'd already done. Not that she needed _him _to tell her that...

She checked the urge to look over her shoulder and said, "Fly away if you want."

There was a long silence.

"Harbinger won't go, will he?"

"No. Neither will Brand, or the Lieutenant." He muttered a few choice curses under his breath. "It's like the damned deserters are contagious."

"Well. There you are."

"Sienna," Fennec groaned. "Don't play stupid. You know full well we're not getting anything out of this. We need to make them understand that."

"Fennec, you don't seriously expect me to believe you came here for _practical _reasons, do you?"

His pained grimace was answer enough.

"I know the White Fang isn't getting anything out of this, but they are." She nodded to Harbinger, who sat with Justice a few yards away. "Go on. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't care that he'd get put down without a second thought, if the Council won."

Fennec swore again and stalked off.

And in his absence, she felt the eyes again.

Sienna turned on her heel and strode into the nearest building. One of the dormitories, by the sound of it. There were students crowding around inside, swarming up and down the stairs with half-eaten meals in their hands and bits of tack slung over their shoulders. She was in the way, but she didn't care.

When she chanced a glance outside, all she could see was grass. She felt a surge of relief, a stab of disappointment... and temptation.

There was nothing right outside, except for a few pit dragons lounging in the sun. None of them would be joining in the fight—they were still too weak to do much more than eat and sleep. A few people milled about. She recognized Willow Schnee, kneeling down to hand-feed a dragon that couldn't lift its head. Past experience told her it would be unwise to approach.

Behind the fire barns was more promising. Blake's dragon sprawled on his back in the grass, with all three Belladonnas leaning against the curve of his side. Flux and Gigas played at his feet, while Harbinger watched them from a wary distance. Brand and Justice were nowhere to be seen, but if the hatchlings were here...

Sienna ducked between two barns and froze, staring at the mass of straw bedding and the small pile of dried meat tucked away in the shadows. The nest was empty, but she could hear the sound of dragons in the field beyond.

She poked her head around the corner—and there was her lost hybrid. Butting her head against a familiar red-headed human, demanding attention just like she used to when she was small. Another dragon pawed at her tail. She snapped at it—but only playfully. It was hard to believe this was the same creature that had nearly killed the Lieutenant. That _had _killed several of her hunters.

Or it was, until she looked up and her eyes narrowed to slits.

Sienna was too stunned to move. So she just stood there, gaping, as the human turned to see what had upset the hybrid and locked eyes with her. Even the other humans and dragons went still at the sight.

_I understand, now, _she thought, as her heartbeat roared in her ears. _I know why you ran. I can fix it._

The hybrid watched her for a long moment. Weighing her. Then her ears went flat, and she curled around the human until all that could be seen of her were a few locks of red hair.

Sienna nodded once, and walked away.

* * *

Strange, how the world could be so calm. It was a crisp, clear autumn morning, and Sage breathed in the smell of pine sap and leaves. Even in the chaos of preparing, of fetching saddles and polishing tack, of making sure their dragons all got a hearty meal before they left... he could just imagine sitting outside on a day like this. Drinking tea and enjoying the weather without a care in the world. He'd be cuddled up next to Scarlet in their secret place, watching their dragons play.

"Oh, gods," Scarlet said, when he'd run out of excuses to readjust Nimbus' saddle. "We're really doing this, aren't we?"

"Don't remind me," groaned Neptune. Zircon whimpered in agreement.

"C'mon, guys." Sun put his hands on his hips and grinned. "Did you _see _the Council Riders in Mistral? They're hanging on by a thread. We've got this."

Sage took a deep breath, swallowed his fears, and hugged Zircon's head against his chest. "This is it," he promised. "After today, you'll never have to worry about culling again."

"We can get you goggles," Scarlet agreed, patting Nimbus fondly on the nose. "Legal ones that would help you see better."

Sun snickered. "I don't know what I'm supposed to promise you," he told Huo, "except that you're about to get to terrorize a ton of Council goons." Huo pulled a wicked grin, full of teeth.

"This time tomorrow." Neptune ran a hand through his hair. "It'll be done. Like, actually done. That's insane." He leaned against Nymph's shoulder. "I can't believe I'm saying this... but I can't wait to go back to classes in the pool."

* * *

If it weren't for Pit's solid weight at her back, Blake was sure she would have bolted by now.

"And how old is he?" her mom asked, giving him another affectionate pat. She'd taken to him almost immediately, and judging by his wagging tail the feeling was mutual.

"A little over a year, now." Blake kept one hand on Pit, stroking his scales to keep herself calm.

Her dad offered him a hand, then rubbed one of his ears until he started to purr. "You've been at Beacon since he hatched, then?"

"Almost. It... sort of happened on the train there. I had to improvise a bit, and since he'd hatched already I wound up on a team with other students who had their own eggs."

"Have you been getting along with them?" asked Ghira.

A soft smile spread across Blake's face, melting away some of the tension. "I couldn't have asked for better."

"It's so good to hear that." Kali squeezed her shoulder. "We didn't know where you were or what you were doing. I'm just glad you were happy... even if you weren't exactly safe."

Blake winced. "I was. But, after Beacon fell... I had to protect Pit." She looked down at her lap. "The White Fang, Cinder, the Council... there are all these people who'd want to hurt him, or use them for their own ends, or kill him just for how he was born. I can't let that stand."

"It would be hypocritical for us to ask you to," her dad said. He put a hand on her head and gently stroked the back of her ear with his thumb—all of a sudden she felt like a child again, dragging chairs around the library to get at books she hadn't already read. Warm and strong, and ready to take on the world.

"I'm sorry," she blurted, before her newfound courage could disappear. "For all those things I said—and for not talking to you for so long. I just... I didn't want you to see. I helped ruin everything..."

"Blake..." He wrapped an arm around her. "You didn't ruin anything. You did what you thought was best. And yes, you made a mistake. But you also faced up to that mistake, and you risked everything to put it right. Not many people are brave enough to do that."

Kali squeezed her hand. "There isn't a day that goes by when your father and I don't ask ourselves if what we're doing is really what's best. Making the world better is _hard, _Blake. The only way you'll never get it wrong is if you never try."

Blake rested her head on her mother's shoulder. "It's hard to believe it's almost over. Part of me... part of me is still terrified that we're making a horrible mistake. After all that time trusting Cinder..."

"Remember the ones you _could _trust," Ghira said. "Like this fellow here."

Pit barked happily and pushed his snout against her father's hand.

"Blake?"

She turned, and found the rest of her team standing nearby. Ruby shot a guilty look at her parents and said, "Sorry to interrupt—"

"Nonsense!" her mother said, and shot to her feet. "I've been wanting to meet all of you."

"Oh! Right, yeah! I'm Ruby." Ruby held out a hand, only for Kali to go in for a hug instead. When she stepped back she was grinning and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. Ghira was content with a handshake that enveloped most of Ruby's wrist. "And this girl over here is Storm!"

"Lo," Storm said. Her tail was still drooping from earlier, when Pietro had taken Penny, but it perked up a little when Ghira scratched her under the chin.

"This fellow's Fang," Yang added, nodding to him. "He doesn't like people touching his head, though." Kali patted his flank instead, and pulled Yang into another hug. And if she noticed that her smile was a little sad, she didn't say anything.

That left...

"Hello, Mrs. Belladonna." Weiss made as if to drop into a curtsy, but stopped when Yang elbowed her gently in the side. "Um. Mr. Belladonna."

"Miss Schnee." Kali shook her hand—it was all very polite, and left a sinking feeling in Blake's stomach.

She didn't have much time to worry about it. Ruby cleared her throat and said, "Um, we should probably head over to the main courtyard. I think we're heading out pretty soon."

So they went, with Blake's parents in tow and the two hatchlings trotting at their feet. A thought occurred to Blake. "Are they even big enough to fly?"

Yang shrugged. "Flux is?"

"I... wasn't really asking about Flux."

Gigas looked up at them and wagged his stubby tail. His wings were definitely too small to support him. If he was anything like Pit he could probably manage it with his powers for a while... but not long enough to get all the way to Vale.

"Um..."

Brand padded over and picked him up by the scruff, dropping him into his empty saddle. Then he trotted away, probably to find Fennec and Sienna. Flux hurried after them, squeaking indignantly whenever her brother threatened to leave her sight.

They headed towards the main courtyard, where they found JNPR and SSSN all grouped together. Ilia and Sienna also stood nearby, studiously ignoring each other. Harpy kept hissing whenever any of the White Fang riders looked at her. The Lieutenant's arm twitched every time.

Glacier bounded over, cheerfully ignoring the way Sienna's group bristled and Weiss' frantic head-shake. Then he sat, his tail flicking back and forth, his head swiveling towards every sound.

Weiss stepped beside him and looked up at Whitley. "You're sure about this? Winter and I can keep an eye on him."

"I'll be _fine," _he groaned. "I've had this talk from Winter already."

"And remember—"

"Don't touch the reins. _I know."_

"I was _going _to tell you to stick close to me or Winter."

"How am I supposed to do that without touching the reins?!"

"You and Glacier haven't had any formal flying lessons, you'll have better luck if you just... tell him..." Weiss went stiff. Blake turned to follow where she was looking and winced. Willow Schnee was approaching.

"Drat," Weiss muttered. She hurried forward, gesturing frantically at Glacier to follow, so that they could intercept her before she noticed Sienna and the rest of the White Fang. He panted happily and didn't move.

Judging by the look on the woman's face, it didn't work. Blake's ears flattened against her skull as the full weight of the glare came down on her, and she felt both of her parents bristle.

Weiss noticed. "What did she do?" she whispered.

"It doesn't matter—"

Too late to defuse the situation—Willow was already upon them, her eyes unusually sharp as they scanned the group. Justice growled at her. Glacier flattened his ears and hissed back.

Weiss' eyes narrowed. She stepped forward, off to the side where she probably _thought _she was out of earshot.

"What did you _do?"_

Blake tried to ignore them and focus on Yang and Ruby's conversation... but Mrs. Schnee was _not _trying to keep her voice down, and Weiss' volume kept rising to match her.

"I came to see you off."

"That is _not _what I meant and you know it."

"Well, excuse me if I'm not exactly ecstatic to see you hanging around with the people who kidnapped your little brother."

"Blake wasn't even _in _the White Fang when that—no. That's enough. I'm glad you're trying to get better, and I'm grateful for everything you're doing for Glacier and the pit dragons, but that does _not _give you the right to decide who I spend my time with."

"I just want you safe. I've seen it on your face, I remember when I met—"

"Stop. That is _not _your place."

"Weiss—"

"I want this to get better, too. But I'm done trying to change for you. Either of you. If you want a relationship it's going to be on my terms."

There was a long pause. Finally Glacier craned his neck around and blinked at Willow until her shoulders slumped and she said, "Alright."

Willow hugged Weiss, and urged Whitley down off Glacier's back so she could throw her arms around him, too.

"Be safe," she murmured, as she stepped away. "Please."

Weiss nodded. "Of course."

"We'll come back," Whitley promised, and tentatively opened his arms for another hug. He stayed stiff as a post, but his small smile looked genuine.

When Weiss returned a moment later, she stopped in front of Blake's parents and said, "I apologize for the disruption." Then, to Blake, "And I'm sorry she said... whatever she said to you. Just tell me if it happens again, and I'll talk to her."

She opened her mouth to say that it wasn't a big deal—but her mother beat her to the punch. "No apology necessary," she said, with an odd smile that looked a bit too much like a smirk for Blake's comfort.

"Thank you, Mrs. Belladonna."

"Please, dear! Call me Kali."

Yang grinned and bumped her shoulder. "Hey! Looks like they're—" she stopped, her eyes fixed on something above Blake's head. "Ah... crap."

Blake looked at the sky. There was a growing swarm of tiny specks silhouetted against the southern horizon—the Branwens had arrived.

* * *

Yang didn't exactly run away, when rogues started landing in the main courtyard. She just... really wanted to find somewhere else to be. Blake's parents seemed understandably confused by the sudden change, but they followed without making her explain.

They did actually run into a few familiar faces on their way out of the main crowd. Three dragons landed between them and the barns—with Mudslide in the lead.

"Oh my gosh!" Ruby ran over to greet her. "She looks so good!"

Yang grinned despite herself. Mudslide tossed her head and flicked her wings, preening under the attention and showing off her barrel chest. She'd gained muscle since the last time they'd seen her, and her green eyes were bright and curious.

"I think it's mostly that she's been sleeping better," Sky said, patting her neck fondly. "How about you guys? Have things..." He trailed off as he noticed Storm's wing for the first time. "Oh. Shit."

"Let's keep talking about Mudslide!" Ruby blurted, when she noticed Storm's ears start to droop. "Or, um—"

Dove winced and pointed at something over their shoulders. "Might wanna go somewhere else."

When Yang glanced back, Vernal and Cyclone were nearby, and looking right at her. She braced herself for an unpleasant conversation... only for Russel to sit up in his saddle and wave at them.

Vernal took one look at him, spun on her heel, and stalked away.

Yang let out an appreciative whistle. "How'd you pull _that _off?"

"Talked her ear off for like an hour and a half about gill cleaning," Russel said.

Weiss frowned. "Is that even a thing?"

"Nope!" He smirked. "You guys might want to be elsewhere until we're ready to leave, though. I think Raven's looking for you."

They ducked hurriedly away, and hid between two of the wind barns. "We don't have to run, guys," Yang insisted. "I can stand next to her for a few minutes."

"Do you want to?" asked Ruby.

Yang winced. "Uh... saying hi to Phoenix might be nice... but no."

"So we'll avoid her!" Ruby hugged her again, and her racing heartbeat settled. "It's not like it's that hard to... um..."

Ruby's eyes went wide. She was looking at something behind Yang.

With a sigh, she turned around. Raven wasn't standing right behind her, like she'd been worried about... but she was just a few hundred yards away. On an open lawn. Right next to their dad.

"Yeah... rescue mission time."

As they got closer, they started to make out snatches of conversation.

"—let her know you're looking," her dad was saying.

"Just tell me where the Beacon students are. I can find her from there."

"I'm not helping you set up an ambush—"

Qrow, who had been standing awkwardly between them, cleared his throat and pointed towards them. The argument between Tai and Raven broke off abruptly.

"Hey, girls!"

Ruby jumped on him. "Hi dad."

"Yang," Raven said coolly.

"Mom."

In the background, Phoenix stopped tussling playfully with Salty, Tempest, and Quake. She barked excitedly and bounded over to sniff Yang.

"Hey again." She rubbed the dragon's nose. "Did you miss me?"

Phoenix barked agreement. It hit Yang a little harder than she liked to admit.

Fang stalked up behind them and started loftily ignoring Raven, though Salty managed to goad him into playing with Phoenix. It was strangely sweet seeing them all jumping on one another like hatchlings.

Soon, though, the older fire dragon moved away from the others and nudged Raven expectantly with her tail.

_Not again,_ Yang thought, as Raven glared up at Phoenix.

"You're here," she said. The words were slightly stiff, like she'd rehearsed them. "You came down on the right side. I'm glad."

Yang opened her mouth to say something scathing—but paused when she noticed that her dad and her uncle had both done a double take and were staring at Raven like she'd been possessed. "Uh, sure," she said. Glanced at Phoenix, who was giving her an intense stare. Waiting. "I'm... glad you showed up too? We can use the extra riders."

Satisfied, Phoenix sat on her haunches and whuffed.

Raven didn't seem to have anything else to say, and a thick silence soon fell between her and Yang's family. Then, finally, she folded her arms and said, "Are we ready to move yet?"

"Not yet," Ruby replied. "It should only be a few more minutes."

"Tch." Raven turned away and snapped her fingers at Phoenix. "Come on. I want to find out what's taking so long."

The moment she was out of earshot, her dad leaned his hands on his knees and let out all his breath at once. "Look at you," he said, grinning at Yang. "You handled that way better than I would have. I'm proud of you."

Yang chose not to try to interpret the way Phoenix barked, as if to punctuate what her dad had said, as she followed Raven away. Or the extra hug Kali gave her when they parted ways with the Belladonnas. Instead she focused on the fight ahead. Nice, uncomplicated combat.

* * *

"Pyrrha is angry."

Ao Guang jumped at the sudden voice behind him. Harpy was pacing back and forth, her ears back, her teeth slightly bared.

Twiggy pawed the ground. "Yes. She is."

"Titan."

All three of them looked at the ground, which seemed to answer her question.

Harpy's tail lashed back and forth. "Want her happy." Her eyes flashed. "We fight the Council..."

Twiggy hesitated. "That might help," she said, "but... did you feel all better? When... um..."

"...No."

"The fighting isn't to make her happy," Guang said. "It's to make sure they don't make her or anyone else sad like that again."

Harpy looked down at Pyrrha, who was staring fixedly at the horizon. "Then... how?"

Freya padded over and butted her head against Harpy's shoulder. "She's already better. You just didn't see her before. She sleeps, now."

"And she plays with us," Guang added. "And smiles and laughs."

"Good." Harpy nudged Pyrrha and was rewarded with a scratch under the chin. "We go soon?"

"Soon," Twiggy promised. "I think we're just waiting for Ironwood, now."

Freya cocked her head to one side. "Is he going with us? I know Professor Goodwitch agreed to fly the carrier for Storm, but..."

Thunderous footsteps sounded from inside the Dragonry. Guang picked his head up, his ears straining to catch more of the sound. That was too heavy to be a dragon, wasn't it?

A hatch opened in one of the biggest buildings, the one that had been the fire arena while classes were still in session. Gigantic steel claws thrust out of the opening, followed by a metal head with glowing green eyes.

The mech stepped daintily onto the grass and said, "Salutations!"

Another voice came from Penny's mouth. Ironwood's. "Sorry for the wait. Calibration turned out to be... unexpectedly difficult."

There was a bark of laughter behind him. "Rule one of engineering!" Pietro shouted from inside the building. "Nothing ever works on the first try!"

Ironwood cleared his throat. "I'm not really one for rousing speeches. And, honestly? I don't think it's right for me to make one, now. I've been complicit in a lot of what we're fighting to stop. So have a lot of us here. But we can worry about the past when we've earned the luxury—let's go make a future we can be proud of."


	107. Hybrid 3

**Hello folks! This chapter, Qrow doesn't need a semblance to jinx himself and everyone around him.**

* * *

**107\. Hybrid 3**

* * *

Vale's Council headquarters were surrounded. Thoroughly.

Raven and her rogues circled overhead, in case anyone tried to escape by air. Students and teachers were arrayed around the back and sides, mixed with more seasoned riders that had joined them and the retirees that had followed Taiyang. To the front and center were the Atlesian Flight Squads, including Winter and Steele, plus a few more teachers and older riders, like Tai and Qrow. And at their head stood the gleaming mech dragon that housed Penny.

Now that James was actually looking at them all laid out like this, it was starting to seem a bit excessive. Then again, overwhelming force had been the point—he didn't want a battle, today. The Council were outnumbered two or three to one, even counting the students they'd brought in with barely grown dragons, and with a large number of the riders on James' side still occupied elsewhere fighting off the Grimm Cinder had drawn towards the kingdoms. Their surrender was little more than a formality, at this point.

"This is too easy," Qrow grumbled. "They aren't even trying to scare us off with rifles."

"Would you rather fight an army before we go in?" Tai hissed at him.

"Yeah! This doesn't feel right... and it's _boring."_

James sighed. "It's the Council, Qrow," he said. Penny bent her head low to deliver the message, quietly so that he wouldn't broadcast it to everyone nearby. "They're going to argue about terms for at least an hour before they agree to present them."

Just as he finished speaking, one of the building's doors opened. It wasn't a Council member that exited. Probably a lesser clerk here to deliver the terms, if James had to guess, but he couldn't help frowning.

"General?" Penny asked, using the speakers inside the mech to speak only to him. "Isn't it good that they finished quickly?"

James smiled wryly. "It's not _finished _by any means," he said. "The negotiations will be long and grueling, if only out of spite. I'm just surprised they didn't leave us out here a lot longer. I was expecting to have to ask one of the earth dragons to knock on the door."

She went quiet to consider that. James leaned forward in his seat, squinting at the monitor displays that showed him the building in front of him. Being inside the mech was... strange, but he thought that was probably a good thing. It was easier to do this when it didn't remind him at all of his days as a student.

"Well?" he prompted, when the clerk had been hesitating almost an entire minute. "Go ahead and say what they told you to say, we aren't interested in shooting the messenger."

The man cleared his throat. He didn't have a microphone, but Penny's ears were excellent. They should be transmitting the information to him perfectly.

James was having trouble believing that was what was happening, at the moment.

"General Ironwood and his rogues will submit themselves to arrest. If they choose to comply, the best possible effort will be made to find accommodations for their dragons in brooderies."

When he was finished, the clerk went very pale and started inching towards the door.

"That is completely unacceptable," James said flatly. "And they know it. Please tell them that I _really _don't want to break the door down, but I will if I have to."

With a frantic nod, the clerk turned and fled back into the building.

* * *

No more cage.

Now it stood in a dark, empty room, between the forepaws of a bigger dragon. There were others, too, crowding in all around it, so close that their scales were touching.

That was wrong. Touch belonged to the first day. The few seconds when it had possessed the same magic humans did, to make its body move just by wanting it. There had been bigger ones, helping it to its feet and licking away the bits of goo and eggshell on its scales. Then came bright lights, and something cold at its forehead...

The memories were foggier every day. Already it was half-sure that had all been a dream. In its dreams it always had the magic. Would that fade, too, when it forgot?

There was a noise. Metal groaning, but louder and deeper than it had ever heard before. Light poured in through the ceiling, revealing something _else _far overhead. A great blue vault, bright light, and an impossible smell.

Hybrid 3 was the first to move. It unfolded itself from where it was lying hunched on its stomach, and lumbered step by step up the ramp and into the endless room. Others followed, swarming over one another as they clambered up behind it, pupils shrinking to pinpricks in the unfamiliar brightness.

Three reached the top of the ramp. The building trembled with its weight, metal groaning and bending until it took the final step onto solid ground. Then it reared up to its full height. Its jet-black scales drank the sunlight, except where lines of silver reflected it until they shone like the lab's fluorescent lights. It towered over the crowd of hybrids behind it, over the dragons that surrounded the building, over the building itself, until half the strangers were lost in its great shadow.

Hybrid 194 couldn't see Three's head, but it was sure it must be touching that final ceiling.

There came a sound that wasn't a sound. It was a pressure, in the head and the chest, a great invisible weight pressing down on them all as Three opened its jaws and roared.

Shocked silence followed. One of the strangers stepped forward. An old dragon, all mottled greys and browns. Its answering bellow should have sounded thin and weak by comparison—but there something about it that turned it into an incantation, written in fire on the world.

* * *

The fight started so suddenly that it left Nimbus reeling. He charged a moment later than some of the older dragons, mostly just because he wanted to keep up with Huo. There was so much shouting and roaring that he could hardly hear Sun's incredulous shout.

"What the unholy hell is _that?!"_

"It looks like Gigas," Sage shouted back.

_"Gigas is cute!" _Scarlet gestured wildly at the gigantic dragon. _"That is not!"_

"Huo?" Zircon called out. "Where are you going?"

They were still charging in a straight line, directly towards the center of the action. Dragons were already veering off to collide with the hybrids, scattering into dozens of smaller fights. And at the heart of the chaos, orbited by several flight squads, stood the beast.

Nimbus hadn't thought a dragon bigger than Crucible could even exist. This one could have fit his entire head in her mouth—and even when she came crashing down onto all four paws, sending a shudder through the ground, she was still taller at the shoulder than he would be if he stood up on his hind legs. Her tail was thicker around than Nimbus' entire body.

"Nymph?" Zircon started to slow down, falling back behind Nimbus. "When are we going to turn?"

"We're not," she said grimly.

"But—!"

"We can't just let her rampage around wherever she wants," Huo snarled. "She could crush half the army just by lying down!"

"Or _us!"_ Zircon yelped.

Nimbus couldn't help but agree. His vision was already blurring as they approached her... but he could see enough to follow the motion of her head as it swiveled. With the way his sight was blurring, her glowing eyes left trails of silver light as she moved. Six of them.

"Um," Zircon squeaked. Even Huo balked as she reared up again and swung a paw the size of a small airship at them. As it passed over his head, Nimbus could finally make out her claws. There were seven of them on one paw, not counting the rearmost one... or the extra pair that had grown up between the others, smaller and more wickedly curved.

"Back up!" Nymph roared, and shot a blast of water at the dragon's head. Her head moved slightly to the side, and three of her eyes closed to avoid the attack. Otherwise, there was no reaction.

"Take off!" shouted Neptune. "There's no way that thing can fly!"

It was true—as Nimbus leaped into the air, he soared over her broad back and saw that her wings weren't much bigger than Twiggy's. Forget flying, there was no way she could even _glide._ She was awkward and lumbering on land, moving slowly and stiffly because of the thick armored plates that grew all across her body. Even her tail was covered in the bony plates, and ended in a vicious spike.

"We're going to have to distract it for now," Sun shouted. "Too much armor!"

Huo spat a fireball at her anyway. She turned so that it washed across her shoulder, then whipped her tail towards him. He dodged it just in time, but it came close enough that the rush of displaced air sent him into a head-over-tail tumble in midair.

A shout came from behind them. "Heads up!"

Nora and Freya swept in from the side, aiming directly for the gigantic dragon's eyes. She opened her mouth to bite. With a yelp and some frantic flapping, Freya circled around to the back of her head unscathed. Huo managed to stabilize himself and retreat to a safer distance.

The rest of JNPR weren't far behind Freya, but Nimbus couldn't see RWBY anywhere. Until he looked down, and noticed them charging one of the main entrances of the building. He couldn't make out much of what was going on, since he was still seeing doubles and they were far away, but he had the sense they were fighting.

He really hoped they were having a better time than he was.

* * *

Harpy's dive carried them so close to the gigantic dragon's head that Pyrrha could see her own reflection in its eyes. Pale, ghostly, and oddly warped... but, if anything, _bigger _than she actually was. It was an impossible target to miss.

The blast of desiccated air struck dead-on. Pyrrha's chest ached with the roar that followed. Harpy shrieked and lashed out with her claws, catching the ridges at its brow and digging in. Its head was nearly as large as she was.

She crawled towards the metal plate on its forehead, even as the great head swung back and forth in an effort to dislodge her. It was bigger and more heavily armored than any of the ones that had been used on the pit dragons—more like a helmet, really, though it didn't cover the dragon's lower jaw. Harpy's claws bounced off with no obvious effect.

A flash of silver. Pyrrha twisted in the saddle to stare at the bits of the dragon's scales that were visible under the helmet. Bright lines shone like stars against the black, looking almost like letters in an alphabet that didn't exist. And they were glowing.

"Oh—!" she blurted, and the world spun.

She weighed a thousand pounds, and she was hanging from the earth by only the straps on her saddle. They traced lines of fire across her legs. Pyrrha's breath caught in her throat as she stared down into the endless chasm of the sky. Something gave. Everything spun around her once, twice, a third time, until she was so dizzy she could hardly see. Then her arms snapped out and she stabilized just enough for her to look down.

Up. Nothing but clouds, and nothing at all tethering her to the ground. She looked up.

Down. A funnel of dust and dirt and tree branches, parked cars and dragons and their riders, whirling around the dragon. Wind howled around her as she spun in a wide arc, faster and faster, until abruptly physics reasserted themselves... and she went _flying._

* * *

The ground was _not _supposed to spin like this.

Twiggy flailed all four legs and her wings, but every time she managed to snap them open despite the wind, the world turned upside-down again and she was falling all over again.

She could feel Jaune still clinging to her back—but Pyrrha had been torn right off Harpy's. Twiggy twisted in mid-air, trying to find her, to fly out of reach of the hybrid's powers so she could catch her—

The effect ended as abruptly as it had begun. Twiggy started to fall, properly this time, and opened her wings. They ached with the strain of fighting changing gravity, and she still had to dodge around random bits of debris that were now falling from the sky. She could see dragons that hadn't been quite as lucky as her hitting the ground hard. Some favored injured paws when they got up. A few didn't get up at all.

She still couldn't see Pyrrha.

Then Jaune tapped her flank and shouted, "There!"

Twiggy folded her wings and dived—directly towards the gigantic dragon. Pyrrha was falling behind her, spinning slowly, her arms thrown out in an attempt to stabilize herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Harpy flapping frantically as she tried to reach her, but she'd ended up on the opposite side of the building after the tornado. She wouldn't get there in time.

It came down to the last fifty feet. Twiggy snagged Pyrrha under the arms and opened her wings wide like a parachute, sending them drifting gently to the ground... right between the giant's paws. She was forced to toss Pyrrha the last few feet to get her out of the way of a claw longer than she was tall. She landed in a graceful roll and came up sprinting, as Harpy streaked over their heads.

The dragon raised her paw to attack again. Twiggy bolted, but before she could strike her, Guang and Freya came roaring overhead. They swept past the dragon's head, shooting water at her eyes and raking claws across her nose before darting up and out of reach.

She shook her head, her many eyes squinting against the haze of dust and steam left by the attacks concentrated on her. Then the glow in her scales, which had been steadily dimming, brightened again. Her hind legs coiled beneath her. Muscles rippled. Her tiny wings spread... and she took off.


	108. Me and My Big Mouth

**Happy Friday, folks! And happy holy-shit-is-it-actually-gonna-stay-spring-this-time? to anyone else who's been grumpy about winter since February started.**

* * *

**108\. Me and My Big Mouth**

* * *

If Neptune had one regret—which he didn't, he had _many _regrets, beginning and ending with picking a fight with a freaking _dinosaur_—it would be having hope that the universe would throw them a bone.

"Left!" he screamed, ducking against Nymph's neck as black and silver scales swept over his head. They were gone in a heartbeat, sending up a ripple of wind that almost flipped him over. Then the dragon's powers finished the job, and it was all he could do to keep his breakfast down as they spun end-over-end towards the ground.

They were too low down to recover in time. Nymph crashed into the wreck of a parked car and rolled heavily onto her side, groaning. Neptune bent to check for injuries, but she climbed back to her feet with only a small wince. "You okay, girl?"

"Kay," she said, and sprinted back towards the action.

The action being the dragon, which probably weighed almost as much as _Beacon _did, fluttering around like a hummingbird. "I miss the days when the people we fought had to obey the laws of physics," he grumbled, glaring at its stupid tiny wings that _no _reasonable person would have thought could lift all that weight into the air.

Scarlet was never going to let him live that down.

Back in the air, the hybrid had dropped the tornado effect and was diving at them with its claws outstretched. Sun and Huo just barely dodged out of the way of a deadly slash. Neptune heard him shouting, _"Why?!"_ as they careened off to the left, before Huo figured out the change in gravity and flew back towards the fight.

And, okay, Neptune could maybe accept that the stupid thing could fly with its powers. Pit did that too, sometimes... but _how _was it this _agile?_

It spun in mid-air and whipped its tail at them. There was a sharp _crack, _the sound of something as thick around as a bus moving faster than the eye could follow. They scattered, but the attack clipped Nimbus and sent him careening into the side of the building. Rock and bits of brick rained down from the place where he'd landed.

Neptune's heart jumped into his throat—but Scarlet raised a hand and flashed them a shaky thumbs-up.

"Just distract it," he muttered to himself. "Yeah. Piece of cake. But it'd be _really _nice if they'd _hurry up—"_

Its head turned towards Freya and Guang. They tried to dive to the side, but at the last second its powers pulled on them and left them stalling in midair. Guang took the brunt of the attack—its claws struck his side, leaving long gashes and neatly severing the strap of his saddle. Ren slid to one side and had to grab his dragon's neck to keep from falling.

"Shit!"

Nymph dove at the hybrid's head and blasted it with more water. But it could just close its eyes and shrug off anything they did to it. Another grab, and it had Guang trapped between its paws. It pushed down...

Freya flung herself at its claws and struggled to pry them apart. Twiggy attacked its head, forcing it let go of Guang with one paw so that it could try to slap her off. Harpy came up from underneath it to flit around its face and block its sight. Guang was left hanging from its foreleg while it flew, too dazed to move, while Ren's grip started to slip. Nora slid down from Freya's back to grab his hand before he could fall. She kept her other hand tangled in the saddle straps, but when the hybrid shook Guang, it slid free.

Every dragon tried to dive for them at the same time. In one instant Nymph was just thirty feet away, her forelegs outstretched to try and catch them. The next, the hybrid let out another bone-rattling roar and everyone went flying in opposite directions.

* * *

Impact happened three times, for Nora. Once with a dragon she didn't recognize, right after she'd been thrown away from the hybrid. She hardly even registered it—she was too focused on her empty hand. Again, when she crashed into the side of the council building. And then the world finally turned right-side up, and she fell the last five feet to the ground with a quiet thump.

_Ow._

Nora groaned and rolled onto her side. She could see the whole outer courtyard—the hybrid took up most of it, darting through the air and making wild swipes at nearby dragons. It was ringed with more buildings, mostly other official offices like the town hall. Several had been hit by falling dragons, and two had collapsed completely. She couldn't see Ren or the dragons anywhere.

"Ren!" She pushed herself to her feet and sprinted into the open, but had to throw a hand up over her head. There were still rocks and bits of rubble flying everywhere, and one hit her hard on the back of her head before she could duck behind a lamppost.

"Freya!" Another roar made her drop into a crouch. The hybrid wasn't tossing everyone around anymore, but it was still flying, and more and more dragons were getting knocked to the ground by its claws and tail and not getting up again.

Nora spotted a long furrow in the ground nearby and rushed towards it. Just as she had almost reached the spot where it ended, a dragon and rider pair went down. She yelped and jumped out of the way, and wound up on her back in the dark. She blinked.

Guang lifted his wing and peered at her. "Gud?" he asked.

"Thanks," she said, a bit breathless. Then she ran around to his other side, where the hybrid had clawed him. The cuts looked _deep._

"No flying right now," she decided, as she clambered onto his back. Who even knew where his saddle was, and she'd just had an important lesson in why being untethered around the big one was _not _fun. At first she kept him at a walk, to see if he was holding up okay, but when he managed that easily she urged him into a trot.

They had to find Ren and Freya.

* * *

Ragnar was the first into the building—and the first out. He smashed through the front wall and into a wide-open lobby, looking around wildly for any indication of where the Council might have gone. All he could hear was his own blood in his ears.

Cinder might have been the one directly responsible for murdering his rider... but _they _were as much a part of it as her. And they were nowhere to be found. He tried to charge down a hallway, but his shoulders were a little too wide to fit through the door. As he struggled, three hybrids came streaking through the hole he'd made in the wall and jumped him.

He reeled back. The smallest, a blue and white hatchling that looked only a few weeks out of the shell, he suspected must be a wind and water hybrid. He had gills, but they were oddly shaped and frilly like a wind dragon's head fins. He couldn't even guess about the other two. One had steel grey scales and a barrel chest that kept expanding until she let out a huge gout of steam that scorched the end of his nose. The third spat a gob of yellow liquid at him, which he dodged—and when he glanced behind him, the desk it had struck instead had melted.

Ragnar bolted for the open air, almost tripping over himself in his haste to get away from the evil-looking fumes billowing up from the wreck of the desk. He shouldered his way through the wall just as Glacier was about to try to follow him inside.

"Careful," he barked, as he turned to face the hybrids. "The yellow one spits acid."

The grey dragon was already crawling out of the building. She was the biggest of the three—Ragnar would have guessed that she was nearly a year old, if he didn't know for a fact that she couldn't have hatched more than a couple of months ago. What had they _done _to the poor dragonets?

No time to worry about it. Ragnar reluctantly let Glacier handle the yellow one, since the icy mist kept him distracted enough that he had a hard time aiming his acid. Already there were several growing pockmarks in the path under their feet. He himself focused on grappling the grey one, forcing her down onto her belly where she couldn't blow steam at him. The third launched himself at his head and bit down hard on his neck.

Ragnar tried to shake him off—and succeeded too well. He went flying into a lamppost and slammed into it at full-force. When he got back to his feet he was limping badly.

His heart seized at the sight—and the bigger grey one took the opportunity to make a grab for Oscar. Ragnar rolled onto his side, crushing her under his weight until he could get a better grip. She squirmed and snapped at his face.

Ragnar shook himself. He kept thinking like this was a fight with a Council dragon—but she couldn't give up, no matter how much she might want to. If they were going to end this, they had to free the hybrids. Either by finding whoever was controlling them, or...

"Glacier," he barked. "Follow me! Bring the little one!"

The acid-spitter was too dangerous for Ragnar to consider trying to hold down right now. But he picked up the grey one by the scruff and raced down the path, flaring his wings here and there to dodge between dragons and riders. The grey hybrid managed to twist in his grip until she could blast him right in the face. He roared, and she slipped loose.

Ragnar made another grab for her, but missed. She was going after Glacier, now, but he hadn't stopped running. He shook his head. They could look for her again later—already they were attracting the attention of more hybrids.

He darted away, following Glacier down a narrow pathway between two buildings. They were across the street from the Council building now, and alone except for the struggling hybrid. "Pin him down," Ragnar said, and leaned in to capture his head while Glacier held his body. He was still struggling, even with his injured leg. It was already swelling near the joint.

"Lee," Glacier said, and nudged him out of the saddle.

Whitley grabbed a small satchel out of Glacier's saddlebag and slid to the ground. From inside he pulled a screwdriver and a set of wire-cutters, then stood there, poised to jump in as soon as they loosened the cover.

Oscar jumped down, too, and helped hold the little one's head steady. That let Ragnar focus on prying apart the metal plate with his claws—carefully, _carefully, _though it was hard with him struggling so much. He wasn't like the pit dragons, half-dead from exertion and poor diet.

"Soon," he promised. "Soon you'll be alright."

Finally he managed to pop the cover, and Whitley dove into the circuitry. There wasn't time to do it as cleanly as Ragnar would have liked—the feedback sent a shiver through the hatchling's body. He curled up in a ball the moment the device was disconnected, whimpering and covering his nose with his paws.

"Here," Ragnar said, and leaned in—but the little one flinched away from him, wide-eyed, and bolted.

Glacier tensed, ready to pounce, but Ragnar put a paw on his back to stop him. "We can't take too long chasing him down. Not if we want to free more of them."

The ice dragon snorted. "Can't free them all. Only small ones." He tilted his head to one side, as if remembering the acid-spitter. _"Some _small ones."

Ragnar hummed. Glacier wasn't wrong... it would be faster to find the Council and put a stop to this that way. But how were they supposed to do that if they could hardly move without being swarmed by hybrids?

He heard wingbeats approaching and glanced up—not a hybrid, this time, but a lightning elemental almost as big as Glacier. There would be no holding this one down while they freed her.

"Run," Ragnar roared, and bolted down the street.

* * *

"Well, fuck me and my big mouth!" Qrow shouted.

Salty almost couldn't hear him over the shrieks of other dragons. He flicked one ear—honestly, his rider had never met a good sign he didn't want to jinx, so he wasn't sure why Qrow was so surprised.

"Focus!" snapped Winter, from a few feet to their left. Steele snorted and plowed into one of the biggest hybrids. He wasn't sure what mix she was, but had to be some ice in there somewhere, because she and Steele left trails of frost whenever their tails swept the ground.

Salty circled around so that he and Steele were back to back. The biggest hybrid on his side didn't even reach his belly—but there were nine of them, all hissing and nipping at his ankles. Every time he knocked one away, two more would come flying at his head, or at Qrow, or try to get past him to flank Steele.

The two of them kept fighting, retreating until they were backed up against a wall of the Council building. That left them trapped, with no more room to move, but it also meant they could both concentrate on what was in front of them without worrying about attacks from behind. It almost felt like they might be getting somewhere when Steele managed to pin the biggest hybrid down.

So of course, knowing their luck, another dragon came sailing over the roof of the building and landed on Salty's back before he could even react. He couldn't see much of it as it knocked him over, and only when he'd rolled onto his side and kicked it away did he finally notice that it wasn't a hybrid at all. It was a wind elemental, about Storm and Fang's age, and as it righted itself in midair he noticed that one of its joints kept slipping out of place with every beat of its wings.

Salty's distraction cost him. Three of the little hatchlings jumped on him, biting down on his shoulder, his neck, and the base of his tail. He howled—the one on his tail burned, and he couldn't shake it off!

Steele jumped to help him, tearing away the one that had grabbed his neck. Salty batted away the one on his shoulder himself, but when he tried to grab the last one its scales scorched the bottoms of his paws. Finally he slammed his tail into the wall, buckling it and sending bits of brick raining down on himself. The hatchling fell off and landed on his back, but as soon as he hit the ground he rolled to his feet and opening his jaws.

Liquid fire dripped from between his teeth, burning like his eyes—a bright, eerie green. It melted the street wherever it landed, and the fire took to the asphalt like it was dry kindling. His eyes rolled, and green light shone through his stomach and throat.

"Run!" Salty barked, and turned on his heel. Steele was ahead of him, sprinting flat-out, craning his neck to look over his shoulder.

It wasn't a blast of fire. Instead the hatchling trembled and shook, until a fine green mist sprayed from between his teeth and caught the wind. Everything in front of him burned—the grass, the pavement, even the solid brick of the building's walls. One of the other hybrids wasn't far enough out of the way. A few droplets struck her side and she went down, flailing wildly in an attempt to put herself out.

Salty roared. He wasn't aware that he'd stopped until he saw that Steele had, too—and he heard two other calls from above him. Quake and Tempest were overhead, diving down to try and help. Before he could hesitate, he charged straight at the green hybrid.

He puffed up again and started to glow... but before Salty could even think of getting out of the way, the wind changed. The machine didn't try to abort the attack, even though the injured hybrid was now right in its path. Maybe it couldn't once it started—or maybe it had decided that now that she was hurt, it wasn't worth trying to avoid killing her.

He tackled the glowing hatchling. He managed to grab his neck in his jaws and wrench his head to one side, directing the worst of the attack away from the injured one. Quake hit the ground shoulder-first, sending dirt and bits of pavement flying in every direction and covering Salty. Tempest flapped her wings, once, to counter the force of the wind.

In the end, only a little of the liquid fire hit Salty. Most of that he could shake off, along with the dirt and stones. The remainder he had to scratch away before it finally stopped burning.

Steele crouched over the burning hatchling. He held her down gently with one paw, and breathed chilling mist on the fire. It took almost a minute, but eventually the cold won out over the green fire and all that was left was a great bare patch on her hide.

Even then, she still struggled to twist around and bite him.

* * *

Twenty seconds into the fight, and Blake was already breathless and running for her life. She wasn't sure which hybrids were still following them—almost a dozen had swarmed into the building the moment team RWBY had gone inside, and to make matters worse it was so cramped that they'd needed to dismount, which was slowing them down.

The only thing that _did _help was that Pit and Jade had dropped to the back of the group, and worked together to collapse the ceiling in the hallway behind them. The hybrids were still getting through, by the sound of it, but not nearly as quickly. They would have a little time to search.

This wasn't a fight they could win without hurting the hybrids, so they needed to find whoever was controlling them. And that was Watts. It had to be—there was no other way the Council could have gotten their hands on this many of the devices so quickly.

They plowed through empty office spaces and deserted hallways. More of the smallest hybrids were scattered throughout the building. A lot of them were relatively harmless, at least to grown dragons like Pit. Some, like one that had what looked like liquid nitrogen pouring out if its mouth, were _not._

Others were dangerous even from outside.

The building shuddered. Dust rained down from the ceiling, and with a deafening _crack, _bits of the outer wall tore free and, by the look of it... fell. Upwards. Through the gaps Blake caught glimpses of the giant outside, flying.

She shook her head and kept running. The best way to help with that one was to stop whoever was controlling them all. They just needed to keep moving—

Ahead of her, Yang glanced up and swore. She threw an arm out towards Weiss and Blake to make them stop, and yanked Ruby after her. Heartbeats later, the ceiling—which had been buckling inwards, as if under a great weight—_melted._

Blake recoiled from the heat and the smell of burning plaster. Four hybrids hopped through the gap, along with a stream of glowing, molten rock.

"Run!" Ruby shouted, gesturing at them. "Find Watts!"

There wasn't time to argue with her. The pool of lava had already spread from wall to wall, and the hybrid that seemed to be producing it was advancing on them. Its eyes were solid red, and when it opened its mouth there were no teeth—only bubbling magma.

Blake didn't even consider fighting it. She just bolted down the nearest hallway she could see, with Weiss and the dragons all around her, ready to rush through the rest of the building and _find Watts._

The hallway ended in a wide-open space. Empty cages lined the room from wall to wall, and part of the ceiling had caved in, revealing open sky through the hole. On the other side was a door—made of steel, and with a keypad set into the door.

That had to be his lab. If they could just get through...

"Blake," Weiss hissed.

"I know. Maybe one of the dragons can force the door, if we—"

Weiss grabbed her arm. She looked around, and saw that the hybrids had already caught up to them. Lava pooled on the floor, melting the linoleum into so much slag. And Blake finally realized that it was also covering the space under the hole in the ceiling—and with hardly enough room for Pit to stand in here, let alone fly, that meant it was blocking both other exits.

In other words, their destination had just turned into a dead end.


	109. The Floor is Lava

**Hello again! This chapter, baby hybrids are almost as scary as having to use your free will to make split-second decisions!**

* * *

**109\. The Floor is Lava**

* * *

Huo was ready to fight.

He'd _been _ready to fight all day. All week, even. But he just. Couldn't. _Reach!_

He let out a roar of impotent rage as he sailed straight over the giant's shoulder, spinning end over end as he tried to get his wings facing the right way now that the world had turned sideways.

Too late. He smashed into the side of the Council Headquarters belly-first, and the next thing he knew he was lying on his side on the wall, looking up at several holes he'd just smashed through the building. A heartbeat later, normal gravity returned and he fell to the floor with a yelp.

On second glance... "Fang?"

"Hey Huo," Fang said, though he didn't take his eyes off the pair of hybrids facing down him, Storm, and Jade. "Everything okay outside?"

Huo huffed. "It's _annoying._ All I want is to fight something I can actually _hit _for a minute."

"Well..." Storm flicked her tail at the two hybrids. They prowled towards him, and he backed up a few steps when he noticed one of them leaking something so cold that it billowed mist on contact with the air.

"You guys go ahead!" Sun shouted. "Find Watts! We'll slow them down a bit."

They hesitated.

"Shoo!" Sun waved them off. "The quicker you're out of sight the quicker we get to run like—whoa!"

The bigger of the two, the one dripping cold, jumped at Sun. Huo reared up onto his hind legs, smacked his head and shoulders on the ceiling, and spat fire to force her to back away. She darted around to the side and spat at him. He jumped back just in time, but a few droplets hit his scales. Frost spread from wherever they touched him, and they were so cold that they burned.

He focused on his powers, pushing them until his scales were as hot as they could get, and the frost turned to steam. It filled the hallway, obscuring the other three dragons as they bolted further into the building.

The other hatchling was even smaller. He crawled forward with his belly dragging against the ground, fog curling from his nostrils. Strange, violet fog. The bigger one spat again, and Huo had to back up a few steps. The hallway was too small—he had to hunch so that he wouldn't bang Sun on the ceiling, and already the mist was filling the whole hallway. The bigger hatchling darted forward, careful to keep out of it.

"Oh, no you don't!" Huo growled, when she tried to slip past him. He whacked her with his tail, sending her crashing into the wall.

She bounced off and rolled right back to her feet—and this time the jet of freezing liquid struck him right in the chest. Huo lurched. His whole front went numb and tingly, and he could feel the ache spreading through his bones. He stumbled, and almost fell over. The fog inched closer. It passed a potted plant someone had left in the hallway as a decoration, and the plant's leaves turned brown and crumbled away.

"Okay, nope!" Sun blurted. "I think we bought _plenty _of time."

Huo bolted down the hallway and took the first turn he could find. It took a moment to get his bearings—and he mostly only managed because he found a big window he could just smash through. As he crawled back into open air, safely away from the little hybrid that was apparently breathing _death clouds, _he heard Sun groan.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I prefer the big one. The babies are scary."

Huo _almost _agreed... until he tried to get back in the air and realized he was too close to the beast. He let out an indignant roar as he fell sideways _again._ A flagpole rushed past him. He nearly smashed right into Justice and Ilia, who were sparring in midair with one of the bigger hybrids. Then he sailed past another hole torn in the roof of the Council Headquarters. This one was glowing an ominous shade of orange.

Then he _finally _managed to get his wings under him again, and started flying back. It was only a matter of time before he got in close. She couldn't keep tossing them around _forever._

He hoped.

* * *

Fifty feet down, through the hole in the roof, Weiss was calmly assessing their options.

"Where the _hell _is it all _coming from?!"_ she snarled, leaping up onto a desk and throwing someone's crystal paperweight at the hatchling that stood in the center of the room. It was up to its ankles in lava, now, and the stuff was spreading sluggishly towards the walls. The paperweight bounced harmlessly off its forehead and landed in the pool.

It then proceeded to melt, like the cheap plastic imitation it most definitely was. And a bit like Weiss, at the moment. She was already soaked from head to toe in sweat, and every breath smelled like ash and seared her lungs.

Pit prowled back and forth at the edge of the lava, growling and flaring his wings, but he couldn't reach the hybrid that was making the stuff. And the other one it was with didn't seem to mind it at all—it was light enough that it could just walk across, and its paws showed no sign of being burned. He snorted irritably and started to glow, dragging it slowly towards his reach. It struggled every step of the way, sinking in its claws into the magma and sending up clouds of embers every time it moved.

Two tables down from Weiss, a stack of papers near Blake's feet caught fire. She yelped and kicked them away.

Only Specter seemed to be able to do much of anything about the lava problem. He stuck his neck out as far as it would go, to keep as much distance between himself and the lake of fire as possible, and blew mist. Wherever it touched the magma, it cracked and hardened into shiny black rock. He circled around, doing his best to slow its advance while Pit and Weiss edged towards the door.

Maybe it would have worked—but the second hatchling bounded up to the end of the growing pool of lava. Its brilliant white scales started to glow. Weiss had just enough time to jump off her table and flip it onto its side, in the hope that it might be able to block whatever was coming.

What came was light. Light that reflected off the walls and the ceiling and the floor, still bright enough that Weiss squeezed her eyes shut. Then it was too much even through her eyelids, so she buried her head in her arms as their dragons howled and waited for it to stop.

It didn't take long. She took her arm away, squinting into what _felt _like sudden darkness. Bright spots danced across her field of vision. She lurched out from behind the table and shouted, "Specter! Ice!"

He let out another breath of mist at the sound of her voice. His head twisted back and forth, his gaze unfocused, chilling everything in front of him just in time to stop a surge of the magma that had been about to creep past his paws. But he'd clearly been blinded by the light—he couldn't find the edge of the magma to freeze it anymore, and soon had to retreat as the flashbang hatchling started taking swipes at his nose. Its scales had gone a dull grey, but even as she watched they started to lighten again.

Without Specter keeping it back, a trail of the magma had oozed all the way down the center of the room—and Weiss and Pit were stuck on the wrong side. Pit retreated as far from the lava as he could, whining and pawing at his eyes.

Weiss tried to back up a little more, and her back hit the wall.

This... was not ideal.

* * *

Ilia only caught a brief glimpse of them through the hole in the roof, as Justice rolled in midair to avoid a large wind and water hybrid that had been harassing them since the battle started. Just a flash of white, in a room that looked like the inside of a volcano.

It was enough for her to realize that Weiss Schnee was down there, and to urge Justice to circle around for another look. And, well... Weiss and Pit seemed to be stuck inside a shrinking island of linoleum. Surrounded on all sides by lava.

"Down!" she shouted, gesturing towards the opening. Justice hesitated. Her heart lurched—but seconds later, she realized that he had a fairly good point. Their own opponent was still circling them. If they didn't do something about that before charging in, they might make the situation even worse.

As Ilia was struggling to think of something they could do to distract their hybrid, Justice let out a bellowing roar. Another answered him from the other side of the building. Seconds later, Harbinger and Flux crested the roof. Gigas flew right behind them, the dusting of pink and gold freckles on his scales shining like tiny stars.

The second he was over the roof, he spread his wings wide and fell into a spiraling glide. The pit dragon swerved hard to one side and smashed into the wall of the building, only for Flux to dive at its head and send sparks dancing across its metal helmet. Finally Harbinger slammed into it at full force, driving it back down to the ground.

"Go!" Ilia shouted to Justice. He tucked his wings and dived.

Inside, Blake was up to her elbows in an electronic lock, trying to open the door before the tide reached them. She didn't seem to be making much progress—not when she kept looking over her shoulder and shouting directions to Specter. He swung his head back and forth, blowing mist at the edge of the lava to cool it down and buy them time, but never in the same place. It didn't look like he was aiming at all. Weiss had her arms around Pit's neck, speaking into his ear as he groped at the wall with one paw.

Could they _see?_

Justice dropped straight into the heart of the inferno. Ilia didn't have time to wonder about the blinded dragons—she just guided him over to the side, near where Pit was huddled in the last clear space still left. With the low ceiling and the floor covered in lava, there wasn't enough room for him to fly out, even if he could see where he was going.

"Climb on!" Ilia shouted. Pit's head snapped towards them, and Justice let him grope around until he found his shoulder. His scales started to glow, and he crawled right onto his back. Lighter than he might have been, but Justice still huffed and groaned and sank a little further into the lava. That left Weiss, still hanging from his neck. Ilia stretched out her hand.

She hadn't quite thought that through. An instant later Weiss was right behind her, clinging to her shoulder, her skin red and hot to the touch like she had a full-body sunburn. Ilia tried to ignore it. So, naturally, Weiss decided to grab her face and shout... something. She didn't catch it over the roaring of the dragons and the lava, and her own panic.

Ilia's first instinct was to struggle—which she thought was fair, when her crush's girlfriend had just wrapped an arm around her eyes. Then something seared across her vision, white-hot even through that barrier, and when Weiss finally let go she had to blink away fuzzy blotches it had left behind.

Justice picked his head up. He had apparently decided that the easiest way to cover his eyes was to just shove his face into the lava. There was molten rock dripping off his chin. He sneezed, and spattered the wall in magma.

A moment later he reached the other side. Blake didn't look up from what she was doing—she had a tangle of wires in her hands, a screwdriver tucked under one arm, and a pair of pliers in her mouth. Her hands were shaking, and there were several burns at her fingertips, but she twisted a last pair of wires together and the door finally slid open.

While Weiss guided Pit and Specter through, Blake paused in the doorway to give Ilia a nod of thanks. She glanced behind her—there was a second hybrid she hadn't noticed at first, and it was starting to glow.

Time to leave. She could go with them... but Harbinger and the little ones were outside.

"Good luck," she said, and urged Justice into the air. He left the two hybrids where they were—there wasn't much point fighting them, when they couldn't actually stop them without risking hurting them. They soared up through the hole in the ceiling, and then swept low across the street, passing over a drainpipe as they searched for the rest of the White Fang dragons.

* * *

The pipe was small.

That was good—it cringed further back, favoring its injured leg, until it found a metal grate and pressed its back against it. Like the bars of the cage. It had never gotten to touch those.

It shivered. Inside the pipe was cold. There was water flowing down through the grate, soaking its legs and belly. Its wings and tail came up to wrap around itself, nice and tight. That was good, too.

There had to be something it was supposed to do. There was _always _something it was supposed to do, a plan and a command, but all it could sense was the frantic beating of its own heart. Was this what it was like to have the magic?

It didn't like it.

There was a tingling feeling in its legs. Its eyes blinked open. The water had turned cloudy. Tingling turned to stinging turned to burning. It yelped and dashed out of the pipe, scrambling up onto the drier street. Fifteen feet away, one of the others spat another jet of acid at an intruder. It mixed with the water that was flowing in the gutter from some other fight, running down towards Hybrid 194.

It limped away, hugging its wings tight against itself, until the path split in two. It skidded to a stop.

Right or left?

There were intruders in both directions. Other hybrids. Noise. _Danger._

Right or left?

It waited for its body to move, but it never did. Just sat there. Trembling.

_Right or left?_

It wished it had stayed in the pipe.

A noise from behind it. Paws pounding against pavement, shaking the ground. There was no more time to decide. It had to move—_right or left!_

Hybrid 194 curled up in a ball.

A hot gust of air passed over its scales. It pressed its nose into the dark, warm space between its forelegs and its chest and waited for the intruder to attack.

There was a soft thump, then running footsteps. A voice.

"Shh. No one is going to hurt you."

Was that an intruder? Should it attack? It didn't know how. Should it run? It didn't want to. It couldn't go right or left, it didn't know what to do, it didn't _know—!_

"Look at me."

The voice was gentle but firm. The horrible churning inside settled. It looked.

Green eyes. Blonde hair falling out of a tight bun. A stern face that softened when it whimpered.

"Here." The woman held out a hand. It stared at her fingers, transfixed, as they moved closer. Closer. Then the hand stopped a few inches away. Palm-up. Relaxed. _Ungloved._

It couldn't touch it... could it?

Its neck extended, until its nose pressed against the palm. Its eyes slid shut.

"Good," the voice said. "That's good."

Warmth bloomed in the pit of its stomach.

Somewhere above its head, a much bigger dragon rumbled nervously.

"I know, York," the voice said. "We'll go soon, just let me—"

Go? _Go?_

It lunged at the arm, wrapping legs and tail and neck all around it, sinking in its claws until nothing could pry it away. The woman hissed a breath between her teeth. "It's fine," she gritted out, waving off the big dragon with her free hand. It was strange—only fire, with no other smell. One of its eyes was missing.

Hybrid 194 bared its fangs and hissed at the big one.

"None of that," the woman said. "Here. Why don't you climb on York with me?"

It whined and grabbed a mouthful of her sleeve, ignoring the pain that flared in its jaw.

"I need you to let go, now. I've got you." The other arm wrapped around its back and squeezed tight. It relaxed slightly, pulling back its claws. She lifted it up, grunting with the effort, and slung it over her shoulders.

The big dragon—York? That wasn't a number—crouched down and helped push her with its head so that she could lift both herself and Hybrid 194 into the saddle on its back. It curled up in her lap, nuzzling its head into the crook of her arm.

This was much better than the pipe.


	110. Grudge Match

**Happy Friday everyone! This chapter, an old enemy makes an appearance and a newly built friend makes an entrance.**

* * *

**110\. Grudge Match**

* * *

When Cardin left her in an unmucked stall and forgot to feed her, Mudslide had endured it.

She thundered down the street behind the Council Headquarters, her war cry mixing with Tank's and Barracuda's, with Sky sitting tall in her saddle.

When she finally hit back for once and broke his ribs, she'd run away and hidden in the woods like some kind of monster.

The Council Rider they were chasing must have gotten separated from his dragon somewhere along the way. He tripped over a patch of broken pavement and went sprawling, scrabbling at his back for his rifle. Mudslide roared again and pounced on him, tearing it out of his grasp and worrying it back and forth in her teeth. Tank barked. She tossed it to him, and he smothered it in flames until he could bend the barrel.

When they killed Tornado, she'd been powerless to do anything except sit there and listen.

She snarled at the human as he scrambled away. Look at them now—crumbling underfoot like dry grass the second it came down to a real battle. The second everyone else was allowed to fight back.

They were all useless—except for the hybrids, but Tank was steering them away from those. Mudslide was glad. It wasn't any fun to fight babies who couldn't even help it, and they couldn't win without hurting them.

So they dodged around a flock of hybrids that were smaller than Mudslide's head and went barreling down a side-street of Vale. The battle had already spilled out into most of the surrounding neighborhood, and several empty office buildings had come down. Mostly because of the giant hybrid that kept throwing everyone around.

Mudslide galloped past a coffee shop whose front window had been melted, only to come skidding to a stop when another dragon ran out of an alleyway to meet them. At first she thought he must be one of the hybrids, he was so small—but he wasn't wearing one of the helmets, and he only smelled like earth.

He hesitated when he realized there were three of them. "Um..."

"What are you _doing?" _snarled a voice that made Mudslide's insides twist. "Go find something to—"

Cardin stumbled out into the main street and froze. The dragonet at his feet whimpered and backed up a step. "Hey!" he barked. "Don't run _away,_ you useless little—"

Mudslide pounced on him.

Dimly, she could hear Sky shouting. Mostly swearing. But the only real thing in that moment was his face, wide-eyed and shining with sweat, as her paws bore down on his chest. She growled.

_You're not a giant anymore. I am._

Something bit down on the tip of her tail.

She twisted her head around and snarled, only to find the little hatchling trying to pull her away. Tank and Barracuda hovered uncertainly over him, like they wanted to make him stop but didn't have the heart.

Mudslide gently picked him up by the scruff and disentangled him from her tail. He whined and squirmed in her grip. "No!"

She put him down. "He's a bad human," she told the little one.

"No!"

"If you don't want him anymore, you come find me."

He tried to bite her, and she dodged out of the way. Cardin was getting up again. A flash of white-hot fire erupted in her belly. Someone had given him a new hatchling to leave locked up in a stall. And in the Council's new Beacon there would be no Ruby to show him that riders weren't supposed to hit them, no Jade to tell him that he wasn't bad or wrong for being angry, no Sky to find him when he was alone at night and sit with him until he fell asleep.

She tossed Cardin away in disgust and stalked off down the street, pausing only to look back at the little hatching. _Someday,_ she promised herself. Someday he would realize it was Cardin who was worthless—not him.

* * *

Glacier stumbled in mid-step to avoid squishing a human that had just landed at his feet. It groaned and started trying to turn over. He ignored it and trotted on, his head turning this way and that. There were people he had to protect. Whitley and Oscar and Ragnar, Winter and Weiss and their dragons... why did there have to be so _many? _And where had they all gone?

He stopped and put his front paws up on a nearby building so that he could peek over its roof. Fights with the hybrids were kicking up so much smoke and dust that he could hardly see anything through the haze. Glacier huffed. Just a moment ago Ragnar had been right there, but then a hybrid had started blowing fog everywhere and he'd gotten confused...

"Over there!" Whitley shouted. Glacier had to crane his neck to see where he was pointing, but when he did he found Steele with a crowd of other dragons, grappling a hybrid almost as big as Ragnar. Whatever it was doing was melting the street they were fighting on, and none of them were looking up—where another dragon was circling, waiting for an opening.

Glacier launched himself from his roof and swept towards them with a mighty roar. He crashed claws-first into the dragon just as he stooped into a dive. They arced through the air—he caught a glimpse of Winter looking up at them, her mouth slightly open—and hit the ground about a hundred feet away. He remembered Whitley just in time and dug his claws into the earth to keep from rolling onto his back and flattening him.

The other dragon opened his mouth and loosed a jet of flame. Glacier let out a teakettle shriek and scuttled backwards, putting a cloud of mist between them that blocked the attack. Then he tried circling the enemy—that was something dragons did in a fight, wasn't it?

"Back!" Whitley cried out. "Get out of range, it's going to—!"

Glacier darted to the side, dodging another blast of fire, and sprinted away down another sidestreet. Every turn he made, the enemy dragon pursued him, until he finally skidded to a stop down a narrow street. This time when the other dragon made to attack, he went in close and took a swipe at his face. His claws caught on the metal helmet.

That was strange. Wasn't it supposed to be the hybrids who wore those?

Then he was attacking again, and Glacier didn't have time to wonder about it. He jumped on the other dragon, then yelped and hopped away again the second he touched his heated scales.

"Glacier! Behind you!"

He twisted to look over his shoulder and flattened himself against the ground in sudden fear. A monstrous head had popped up over the row of buildings behind him. Then, very slowly, it turned until six silver eyes were fixed on him.

Glacier's legs buckled. He yelped and landed on his belly with enough force to make the enemy fire dragon stumble. It was like there was something heavy pressing down on his back, pinning him to the ground while the enemy bounded towards him. With a tremendous effort, he lifted his head a few inches off the ground and blew out a cloud of the killing mist. Fire met ice, steam erupted, and his head sank back to the ground. The fire finally cut through the mist, and flames licked across his shoulders.

Then there was a thump, and a familiar low growl.

"Glacier?" Ragnar nudged his side. "Are you alright?"

He whined and squirmed, struggling to get his legs under him. It still felt as if several other dragons were lying on top of him—though the weight was slowly lifting. He looked up in alarm, but Rangar was between him and the enemy dragon now, slapping its head aside whenever it tried to aim a blast of fire.

Glacier hauled himself upright. "Go," he said. "Find little ones." Winter was just back... back... um...

His tail drooped. He didn't remember half the turns he'd taken when he ran here, and he couldn't hear Steele at all.

"We'll look for them," Ragnar promised. "Just stay close to me, please."

* * *

"Where the _hell _did they go?!" Winter snarled.

Steele sprinted down another side street, but it was no use. She'd only caught a glimpse of Glacier flying overhead before he and the pit dragon had both vanished. Bad enough that she hadn't been able to keep track of Weiss without leaving Whitley behind, but now she'd lost him, too.

_Damn it._

When she turned around, she realized she had no idea where Qrow had gone, either.

It was some combination of the noise and chaos of the battle, the hazy smog of mixed ash and dust, and the fact that there were hybrids ready to attack around every turn. One second she'd known exactly where both Weiss and Whitley were. The next, their dragons were running in opposite directions, she'd forced herself to choose and trust Weiss and her teammates to protect themselves... and then Glacier was nowhere to be found.

But the fact that he'd _jumped over her _and she _still _didn't know where he was—that was too much. She urged Steele towards the center of the mess, determined to at least position herself so that she could catch another glimpse of Glacier or Specter.

Winter was only halfway there when Steele trotted past a collapsed building. It was one of many—the massive hybrid in the courtyard had been tossing around trees, cars, and dragons for almost fifteen minutes now, and obviously wasn't concerned with collateral damage.

She was ready to move past it, maybe see what she could do to help with the big hybrid since as far as she knew no one had gotten close enough to damage it yet. But Steele skidded to a stop, his ears pricked up.

A piece of brick skittered down from the top of the rubble. And, now that she was paying attention, Winter could hear the pile shifting, as if there was something struggling underneath it.

"Go!" she snapped, her heart in her throat.

Winter dearly hoped this would be the last time she went into battle with her siblings—she wasn't sure her blood pressure could take much more of this.

* * *

There was no light. No sound, except for distant, muffled roars and the ringing in her ears. Freya tried to get up. A sudden weight pressed down against her ribs, and she froze.

_Okay. No more moving._

She lay on her side, her wings pinned painfully against her back, her forelegs arched to protect the pocket of air around her belly. Inside, she felt Ren stir. Freya couldn't look to see if he was okay, not without maybe collapsing more of the rubble on him. She didn't even dare move her head. Her breathing was already shifting the weight on top of her, sending little stones tumbling down her sides.

More stones fell away, no matter how hard Freya tried to stay still. But these weren't falling down where Ren was, they were being dragged off to the side. The first hints of sunlight shone through, and she managed to twist her head around to see Steele, carefully digging her out of the rubble.

As soon as she could move again, she rolled over to peer at Ren. He was unsteady on his feet, and there was a nasty cut on his forehead, but when she nuzzled his side he patted her nose and said, "Thank you."

Belatedly, Freya remembered to thank Steele, too. He flicked his tail and said, "Of course."

"We need to go," Winter told them, her eyes still fixed on the towering silhouette of the giant. "Are you well enough to come with us?"

"Yes," Ren said, and climbed onto Freya's back. She steadied him with her nose and waited for him to strap himself into Nora's saddle. "We have to find them."

She took off at a trot and launched herself into the air, coming dangerously close to the giant as she scanned the area. Then she heard Guang's jubilant cry and swept sideways. Nora was on his back, with his saddle nowhere to be seen. Freya roared indignantly, and Ren tensed in the saddle. They were running, not flying, but they were still much too close to the giant for comfort.

Freya hopped down to join them and nuzzled at her rider, licking her face and checking her over for injuries. She seemed fine—Guang was another story. He was limping, and there were deep scratches along his side that were still bleeding. When she moved to clean them he yelped and danced backwards.

"I'm okay!" he insisted. "Twiggy and Harpy are still up there—"

"You're hurt, and Nora doesn't have a saddle. I think we have to go somewhere else." Freya's ears flattened at the thought. The smaller hybrids were probably less dangerous than the giant, right?

...Maybe they could just look for Council riders.

"But we have to help," Guang insisted. "Look! There's hardly anyone fighting her anymore!"

Freya looked up and winced. She could see Twiggy and Harpy, the SSSN dragons, and now Steele... but that was it. A few dragons were limping away from the area after being tossed around one time too many. Some weren't moving at all. "Guang..."

Before she could try to argue with him, she heard another roar. There was a strange, buzzing undertone to it, like static on a speaker. Freya perked up and poked her head over the roof of a building to watch. Her brother crowded next to her.

A streak of silver darted out from behind the Council headquarters. Penny's mouth glowed a bright, electric green as she hovered over the roof. Her wings didn't move—they weren't really wings at all, but massive panels covered in gravity-Dust thrusters.

The giant dove at her. Just as she approached, the effect Penny had been charging went off. A laser shot from her jaws and cut through thin air as the giant threw herself to one side. It kept going, smashing the windows of an office building across the street before she closed her mouth and the laser stopped.

"Okay," Guang said, as he hopped back down to the road. "I guess that's better. And I don't want Nora to fall off again."

* * *

"Careful, Penny," James told her. "We don't want to do any permanent harm."

"Her hide appears to be both thick and heat-resistant," Penny said, as the elemental slammed into her side with the force of a runaway airship. "Even a direct hit would do very little damage."

Penny grappled the elemental back. They weren't anywhere near the same size, but she was bigger than most adult dragons and didn't have to worry about getting tired. The claws that raked across her belly didn't do much more than scratch her chassis.

She was surprised to find herself enjoying the challenge—for the first time she felt like she was really a _part _of the fight, participating instead of advising and handling armor. It was Penny who decided when to attack, when to go on the defensive, when to stretch out her neck and roar. _Her _neck. Her body, for the first time she could remember.

James grimaced and leaned closer to the viewscreen. "Any idea what she's been programmed to do?"

"Her parameters seem to be to kill or incapacitate as many enemy dragons and riders as possible. If there are other specifications, we won't know until they come up."

Gravity flipped upside-down. Penny's thrusters compensated automatically, shifting her so that she was hovering in roughly the same place. The elemental paused while the program directing her thought. It hadn't been designed to handle a dragon like Penny, and was most likely based on data Doctor Watts had gathered from the pit dragons. Could it act creatively to solve the problem?

The elemental bit her foreleg. Under the pressure of her jaws the limb started to buckle and bend—but there was no attempt to find weaknesses or build strategies that wouldn't work on a flesh-and-blood dragon. Just using whatever attacks the pit dragons had found useful in the past.

Probably not alive, then. Penny wasn't sure if she was relieved, or disappointed.

"Can you talk to the dragons for me, Penny? James asked.

"Of course."

Her rider grinned. "In that case, I think it's about time we started focusing on the _real _enemy here." He pulled up the set of blueprints her father had drawn up.

Penny couldn't smirk like he could, but her eyes flashed a brighter green.

"Sensational!"


	111. An Empty Room

**Hello folks! This chapter, a few tactical errors are made, Huo practices his favorite trick, and an important guest fails to show.**

* * *

**111\. An Empty Room**

* * *

Jaune had almost forgotten what it felt like to know which way was up.

With the Pennymech grappling it from the front, the giant hybrid had to focus most of its attention on her, which finally gave the rest of them a moment to breathe.

At least, _his _plan had involved taking a breather, right after they found Ren and Nora and made sure they were okay. But before he had the chance Twiggy stopped to hover in midair, her neck twisting around towards Penny. Jaune sagged against her neck. "Please tell me she has a plan. _Someone _has to have a plan, right?"

Twiggy barked, which was encouraging... then dove right at the giant, which was not.

Jaune yelped and clung to the saddle as they plummeted towards the hybrid's face—and _wow, _those eyes were really unsettling up close. Way too many of them, like a spider. Twiggy latched onto the helmet on its head, right at the crown. From only a few feet away, Jaune could see a seam where the outer panel was screwed on.

"Oh," he blurted.

Twiggy attacked it with all four paws, her claws screeching off the metal and leaving a whole lot of useless scratches. Harpy didn't have any more luck when she joined them a moment later—she soon gave up and made another attack on the giant's eyes instead. It closed them just in time, and gave its head and neck a shake that sent them all flying.

Okay. Get the panel off. Jaune could work with that.

"Down!" he shouted.

Either Harpy or Pyrrha must have guessed what he was thinking, because they passed him and Twiggy and flew straight towards the row of destroyed buildings he'd been aiming for. They scrambled out of the saddle the second they hit the ground. Jaune stumbled through the rubble, looking for—

"Jaune! Pyrrha!"

Nora's voice. He jumped and whirled around. "Guys!" Jaune threw himself at her, then Ren. "You're okay!"

"Mostly," Ren said, wincing slightly when Jaune hugged him. "What are you looking for?"

Oh. Right. "Something crowbar shaped."

With four of them searching, they soon spotted a long, thin piece of rebar. A bit _too _long, actually, but it only took a second for Twiggy to fix that by snapping it in half. Jaune tossed one end to Pyrrha and hefted the other in his right hand.

"Be careful," Ren said, and gave them a nod.

Jaune grinned. "Yeah, uh... pretty sure being careful means not going near that thing, but we'll try!"

They'd only been gone for a minute or two, tops, but when they came winging back to the fight, the giant had Penny by the throat.

She seemed... pretty comfortable, all things considered. There were a lot of sparks, and her chassis was cracking, but if it hurt at all she didn't show it. And when Jaune looked at the giant, he realized that she might be _letting _it do that. Because while it was chewing on her, its head was almost still... which was very helpful for Winter Schnee, who was kneeling on its helmet.

As they approached, Jaune noticed that Steele was still in the fight—circling around and making a nuisance of himself, and getting thrown around by the giant. Keeping it distracted. It didn't seem like it had noticed the human on its head. Sort of like how Jaune wouldn't notice if he was wearing a hat and an ant started crawling on it. She threw one arm out, tossing something down to the ground below.

Jaune guided Twiggy to circle around the giant, instead of going for the head like he'd planned. He didn't want it to toss Winter trying to shake him off. Then, as they came up on the other side, he finally spotted the screwdriver in her other hand.

Okay, new plan. Make sure the giant didn't notice until—

The giant pulled back, tearing a mass of metal and wiring away from the Pennymech. Its head jerked with the motion, and Winter slid all the way to the back, hanging by one hand from the back of its helmet. One of her boots struck its ear.

The three eyes Jaune could see rolled upwards.

"Go!" he shouted to Twiggy. He hoped Harpy would follow them—his voice was completely drowned out by Steele's furious shriek. But before he could attack the giant, it hurled the chunk of mech it had torn out. He dodged it, but it turned in midair and slammed into his stomach, sending him crashing through the wall of the Council headquarters. Winter managed to grab on with her other hand, but the screwdriver slipped between her fingers and fell over a hundred feet back to earth.

Jaune swallowed, and started undoing the straps on his saddle. The giant's head turned—another heartbeat and it would see them, and there would be no way they could get in close enough. Penny lunged, wrapping both forelegs around its neck and forcing it back to the ground. It landed hard on its rump. Winter slipped free, then managed to catch herself on one of the bony plates on its neck.

_Jump. _He didn't give himself any time to think about the hundreds of ways that this was a terrible idea. Instead he threw himself off Twiggy's back and onto the giant's forehead. One of his ankles turned as he landed, and he ended up on his hands and knees, staring blankly at the panel.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha dropped into a roll as she landed and came up a few feet away from him. "Over here!"

Winter had managed to get rid of eight screws—there were only two left on this side of the panel, and between them was a hairline gap almost ten feet long. Jaune raised the bit of rebar over his head and jammed it between the panel and the rest of the helmet. Beside him, Pyrrha did the same. As one, they grabbed the metal and heaved.

Absolutely nothing happened. They'd gotten them wedged in so tightly they didn't even wobble, but the panel was fixed on too tightly for them to move it.

Jaune tried to think over his own panic, and the screams of dragons, and the warning shout from Winter—_Oh. _He looked down. The silver lines on the giant's scales were glowing rather brightly.

There wasn't time to grab onto something. Not that it mattered—he, Pyrrha, and Winter were all thrown violently into the sky. He felt the familiar weightlessness that came with falling... but he couldn't help but notice that he was accelerating a _lot _faster than normal. Almost like something was pushing him towards the ground.

Jaune squeezed his eyes shut and tried very hard not to throw up.

* * *

Harpy could see it the moment Pyrrha was thrown into the air—her rider was moving much faster than she could fly. She couldn't catch her.

There was another human coming towards her. She ignored it. If she dived, if she cut right in front of the giant, if she poured everything she had into her speed...

It still wouldn't be enough.

She did it anyway. Wings pumping, watching her human reach the peak of her arc much too soon. And the other sailed right past her, his arms flailing. Pyrrha's blond human.

Something clicked. There were others in the sky with her—Freya and Ao Guang, who had taken off despite the injury in his side. Huo and Nymph, and Zircon and Nimbus. Steele and Penny. All of them closer than she was.

Harpy swerved in mid-air and wrapped a foreleg around Jaune's middle. Her wings snapped out wide to cup the air—

Fire erupted in her chest. He was too heavy—dragon heavy, not human heavy, and she knew the giant must have done something. Harpy pressed him against her chest and, when her wings failed, turned so that her shoulder took the worst of the fall. As she lay there on her side, dazed, she caught glimpses of the others.

Ao Guang reached Pyrrha first. Harpy realized there was a technique to stopping a fall—he set his foreleg under her arms and flared his wings on and off, not trying to fly but only to slow their drop. When he hit the ground, he rolled onto his back with the human cushioned against his belly. Nora and Ren, who he and Freya had left on the ground in their haste, rushed towards them.

Steele lunged to catch Winter—doing the same thing Harpy had almost tried, moving right past the giant. She pounced on him, driving him to the ground and pinning him under her bulk. He snarled and thrashed, clawing at her with none of the hesitation that had filled the battle up until now. His claws opened a long slash across her underbelly. The first blood drawn from her.

Penny leaped into the fray and took a bite meant for him on her shoulder. The giant grappled them both, and all three went rolling in a tangle of wings and tails.

It was Zircon who caught up to Winter, a little too late to give her a gentle landing. He hit the ground awkwardly on three legs, with the human cupped in his free paw. The impact knocked him right off his feet, and he had to twist to avoid landing on her. He squirmed sideways and nudged her with his nose. When he relaxed, so did Harpy. Her head hit the dirt and lolled to one side, and the pain in her chest seemed to double. She panted through it. Breathing hurt.

"Awn!"

Twiggy slammed into the ground a few feet away and bounded up to them. Her nose pushed under one of Harpy's sprawled wings, and Jaune stumbled into the open. He was pale, and limping badly, but still alive.

Harpy's eyes drifted closed. Then she felt a hand on her wing, and they snapped open. Jaune recoiled when she snarled at him.

"Sorry," he said, "but I need to see if you're hurt."

She subsided with a low rumble. Twiggy caught her head before it fell again, supporting it in one paw. Harpy lay still while the human checked her wing joints and muscles, even though every touch sent another spike of pain shooting through them. Then he came to her chest, and she flinched.

Jaune winced with her. "I think it's okay," he said, patting her shoulder. "It looks like you pulled a muscle. Twiggy had the same thing happen, and it healed up in a week or so."

The giant's tail slammed into the ground fifty feet away, sending up a gout of dirt and broken concrete. Jaune yelped and ducked under one of Twiggy's wings as bits of rubble rained down on them. "We gotta move!"

Harpy couldn't stand up, so Twiggy helped her climb onto her back and carried her over to Guang and Freya, well out of the way of the ongoing fight. She slid off and landed in an ungainly heap in front of Pyrrha. Familiar arms wrapped around her neck.

With the last of her strength, Harpy lifted her head and butted her snout against Guang's. He rumbled back, too exhausted to return the gesture. Freya hovered protectively over him, pausing only to lick at the wound in his side.

Twiggy paced around the three of them, her wings flared, ready to snap at any hybrid that came close. But not before she bent her neck towards Harpy and said, _"Thank you."_

* * *

"Go!"

Huo didn't hesitate. He dived right beside Nymph, Nimbus only a few feet behind him on her other side. Zircon didn't follow them—he was busy getting Winter safely to the ground.

Before they could land on her head, the giant snapped it back and roared again. This close, it felt like being shaken apart. Steele squirmed in her grip and bit down on her foreleg. The roar cut off.

Nimbus reached her head first. The two bits of rebar were still jammed into the gap between the panel on her head and the rest of the helmet. He braced his shoulder against one, and Nymph took the other. They heaved. The plate started to buckle.

There was another flash of silver, and the three of them were torn away and flung back into the sky—but not before the panel popped free, sending broken screws flying in every direction and revealing an inner casing.

Huo dove. Steele and Penny worked together to keep the giant's attention on them, forcing her to use her powers to stop them from attacking the vulnerable device. Huo thought she might be starting to get tired, too—it was getting easier to orient himself whenever she flung him around, and the world didn't spin quite as dizzyingly fast.

He reached her helmet just in time to grab on with all four paws as the world turned upside-down. Then he hung there, bat-like, as his body got heavier and heavier. But the device was right there. He tore at it with his teeth, ripping away layers and layers of what felt like cloth and tasted like chemicals. Huo spat them into the wind. Then, finally, he reached wires.

Now _this, _he knew how to handle.

Even as his grip started to slip, he reared his head and blasted the device with all the fire he could muster. The smell of melting copper and burnt plastic filled his nose. Sparks flew.

The giant's powers stopped. Huo's jaws snapped shut as he finally relaxed his forelegs—only to cling even tighter as she began to thrash. He felt the roar shivering through him from the pads of his paws, vibrating deep in his chest and knocking his heart off its rhythm. Her head whipped back and forth. Her tail lashed wildly behind her. Then her whole body convulsed and toppled sideways, hitting the ground with such force that several buildings finally gave up the ghost and collapsed.

There was a moment of silence. Then Huo let out a triumphant roar, and Sun whooped and patted the back of his neck. The giant was free.

At the sound, she began to stir. Huo yelped and slid down the length of her neck when her head rose, coming to a stop on her shoulder. Every movement was slow and jerky as she got to her feet, like she was waking up from a long sleep.

"Hello?" he said. The great head turned. Six eyes fixed on Huo. Her nostrils flared, and her ears pinned back against her skull.

Gone was the eerie blankness of the device. She looked _angry._

"Come on," snarled Huo. "Let's get the bastards that—"

He even didn't see her move. Just a snapshot of her paw as it hurtled directly towards his face, and then blackness—and lots and lots of stars.

* * *

"Huo!"

Nymph dove for him, and just managed to grab her brother's tail before he hit the ground. Even with his fall slowed, he still hit the street hard enough to leave a crater in the pavement.

Behind them, the giant roared and took off again. Her eyes bulged with rage and fear—and fear must have won out, because she ducked away from the other dragons hovering around her head and galloped away.

"Huo?" Nymph walked around to his head and nudged him gently with her nose.

One eye cracked open. "Ugh..."

Two twin thumps, as Zircon and Nimbus landed and trotted up to join her. Neptune clambered out of the saddle to help Sun to his feet. He looked mostly fine, though one of his arms had gotten caught up in the reins and they'd left rope burns up and down his bicep. Huo...

"Ungrateful jerk," he grumbled, as he tried to roll to his feet. Then he yelped and collapsed onto his side again, cradling his left legs to his chest. His eyes were slightly crossed, and there was a patch of cracked scales on his forehead where he'd hit the pavement. Not to mention the giant bruise taking up most of his right side where the giant had smacked him.

"Stop moving," Nymph told him.

Sun wobbled on his feet, and she noticed for the first time that there was a long gash on his calf. Probably one of the giant's claws, though luckily it looked like it had only scratched him. "I gotta—" he mumbled.

At the same time, Huo tried to pick himself up again and said, "I can still—"

Nymph shared an exasperated look with Neptune. Her rider took Sun by the shoulders and made him sit on the ground beside Huo.

"If you keep trying to fight like that, I'll sit on you," Nymph warned her brother.

He snorted smoke and lay back down.

* * *

The door to Watts' lab slammed shut with a terribly final sound. Blake almost slumped against it, but thought better of it when she noticed the bottom was starting to glow red. That had been _much _too close.

Inside was strangely quiet. The noise of the fight outside was muffled, and there was no one in sight. Just the steady hum of computer terminals and what looked like a ventilation system. Vials and beakers for preparing the Dust injections—more than Blake would have thought necessary, even for the amount of untouched eggs she could see. Rows of incubators, all filled. Some with eggs that had clearly been injected recently.

No dragonets. Watts must have sent even the newly hatched into the fight.

Before Blake could even consider a proper look around, a crash shook the far wall. She jumped, and all four of them shrank back towards the door they'd come from. Not that it was actually an exit. Whatever was trying to get in, they'd have to get past it.

Another crash. This time she could see the door on the other side—just as robust as the one they'd come through, but not quite enough to stand up to a fully grown dragon slamming into it.

Pit and Specter stepped forward, their back legs tensed and ready to pounce. Weiss fanned out to one side, and Blake mimicked her—the closer they were to the middle of the room, the better they'd be able to dodge whatever the hybrids threw at them.

The door bulged inwards. Creaked. Groaned. And toppled onto its front. Fang charged into the room snarling, opened his jaws... and let out a confused hiccup and a puff of smoke.

"Oh," said Yang. "Hey, guys."

Ruby looked around. "Wait... this is it, isn't it? Where is he?"

Weiss scowled. "Not here." She pointed at the far corner, where there was a smaller room. It was all windows, so they could easily see that Watts wasn't present. But every drawer on the desk and filing cabinet beside it was hanging open. Watts had bolted.

"Come on," Yang said, "he can't have gotten far."

"That way." Blake pointed towards the door the sisters had come in. She suspected he might have fled because he'd seen her and Weiss approaching through the two hybrids, so he'd probably gone that way. Not that the lava gave them much choice.

She was the last through the door. A final glance over her shoulder—there were the eggs, still snug in their incubators.

_We'll be back,_ she promised herself, and followed her team out of the room.


	112. Exit Strategy

**Hello folks, and happy Friday! This chapter, Watts moves to plan B.**

* * *

**112\. Exit Strategy**

* * *

Something had changed.

Quake wasn't sure what, but the hybrids were different. They hadn't exactly been squeamish about collateral damage before, but... well...

Lava oozed through the upper windows of the Council Headquarters, streaming down the walls and making them buckle and crack. His ears flattened against his skull. Wasn't the Council _inside _that building? What were they doing?

"Come on," Salty barked, and charged towards the molten tide. He blasted it with water, forming weird fantastical shapes of shining black glass. Quake spent a few minutes breaking down a nearby wall, and as he'd suspected the next room was already oven-hot.

It was definitely a lab. Quake shouldered his way through several tables before he froze, his tail going stiff when he realized that the walls were lined with incubators. He didn't think it was hot enough inside to kill an egg, _yet, _but it was only a matter of time.

"Tempest!"

She darted in right behind him, her head fins bristling at the wave of hot air and the smell of sulfur. Without any other prompting she charged towards the back of the room and tugged at one of the incubators. It was bolted to the wall, so she opened it and trotted back outside with the egg cradled in one paw.

They went on like that, limping three-legged out of the building one egg at a time. It was hard, sweaty work... and they weren't doing it fast enough. The temperature rose second by second, and the metal door turned from cherry red to bright orange and buckled inwards. An ominous glow began at the seam between door and wall, and the first drops of lava oozed through.

Salty abandoned the front of the building as a lost cause and worked to keep the gap sealed, but there was only so much he could do. He was already exhausted, and wouldn't be able to keep his powers going forever—and every blast of water turned into steam which soon made the air difficult to breathe.

What they really needed was someone who could withstand the heat, maybe put a shoulder against the door where it was starting to fold inwards... but Phoenix wasn't there. Raven had directed her over the building, where she'd started skirmishing with some of the airborne hybrids, and where she could make sure none of the enemy got away.

Almost half the eggs were out, now. A few nearby retiree dragons had noticed what they were doing and come to help, and one of them even knocked a hole in the ceiling so the heat and smoke would have somewhere else to go. Quake could finally breathe again.

Tempest barked in alarm. He thundered outside, and found her crouched protectively over the pile of eggs, her wings fanning frantically in an attempt to slow the river of lava that had burst through the outer wall. He flexed his powers and slammed his paws down on the ground, cracking it open and forming a long, curved moat for the lava to fill.

It just. Kept. _Coming._

There was a crash. Quake wasn't sure at first where it had come from, until he heard a dragon's scream and one of the Atlas students smashed through a nearby window with a scorched tail. _It's in the hallways, now._

Everyone in the building—the Council, the dragons and riders hunting for them, the hybrids hunting the hunters... they'd all be in danger unless they could get whatever hybrid was doing this to stop. If it _could _stop. Surely the Council would have turned off its powers if they knew how.

More ruptures in the room containing the worst of the lava. Quake couldn't be sure, but he thought it was coming faster now. He growled and lifted another egg out of its incubator, handing it off to other dragons who helped to carry them further away.

Unfortunately, their efforts had caught the attention of the other hybrids. Quake stood up on his haunches, ready to intervene if they started to interfere with the work. Because, surely, the Council wouldn't want to damage their own eggs.

Except that the Council knew they wanted to protect them.

Quake lunged just in time to catch an earth and water hybrid before she could slam into the clutch. There was a frantic clash—none of them had been expecting an attack on the eggs, and half of them were still caught up in keeping the lava from spreading. Tempest threw herself into the path of three of the small hybrids, letting them bite her to buy time for Salty to cover several eggs with his body.

The last egg was carried out of the building. Lava gushed through the door and into the lab, now that no one was bothering to keep it at bay. Quake caught a satisfying flash of Watts' equipment burning. The tide started to turn again, with all the adults carefully defending the eggs. The hybrids were numerous, but they were all only middling size with powers that weren't particularly destructive.

Until they weren't. Another dragon crested the top of the building—old by the hybrid's standards, but still not quite fully grown. A water elemental.

Quake lunged for her. His shoulder slammed into the elemental's head, snapping it to the side and ruining her aim. The blast that would have struck the center of the egg cluster hit Salty's chest instead. It only knocked the wind out of him—but the eggs would have smashed.

Dark blue eyes met his, staring blankly at him as her claws dug into his sides and back. She pumped her wings, sending them spinning through the air. A sudden flush of heat was the only warning Quake had before she flipped them upside-down. Then, she folded her wings and let them fall—straight towards the hole in the roof, and the lava below.

* * *

"There!"

Raven tugged on the reins, directing Phoenix's attention towards a small office building across the street from the Council headquarters. She landed on the opposite side, directly in the path of anyone who might try to escape the fight.

Phoenix crouched on a roof like a gargoyle, staring down at the building below. If there was someone still inside, she couldn't tell.

"I saw something in the window," Raven said. "Might be them, might be one of ours. Probably not one of the hybrids."

Her ears drooped at that. No—the devices wouldn't let any of the poor hybrids escape this fight. Except, maybe, for the giant. Phoenix had caught a glimpse of her a minute ago, with the metal helmet on her head pried open and billowing smoke. There was no sign of her now, and with how big she was that had to mean she'd run away.

Movement in the building below. Phoenix's hackles rose as she spotted a tiny head poking out from behind a set of blinds. Too far away to see much detail, but there was a telltale glimmer of metal at the hatchling's forehead.

"It's them," Raven said. "They must have lost their nerve when the big one got free."

Phoenix mantled her wings, poised to jump down and attack the warehouse. But before she could move, her rider stiffened in the saddle and snarled, "Fuck!"

She lifted her head from the office building to see what had upset Raven. It was Quake—tangled in one of the enemy dragons, falling wings-first towards a gap in the headquarters' roof. A glowing gap.

_The Council might escape._

_"Go!"_ Raven shouted.

_The fight will drag on for weeks or months or even years._

Phoenix launched herself into the air without an instant's hesitation, streaking through the air towards her brother.

_They might even get away with everything they've done._

A last, frustrated blast of fire crashed through a second-story window. It would force them to move again, at least, and maybe someone else would see them. Maybe... but Phoenix couldn't worry about that now.

Closer. The dragon grappling Quake was a pure water elemental. No fire in the mix to protect her from what she was trying so desperately to dive into. The metal plate on her forehead clearly didn't care. Phoenix was only halfway across the lawn when they both disappeared into the eerie red light. They roared.

A metallic rasp, as Raven drew her knife and cut herself out of the saddle. Phoenix only had time to shout, "Salty!" before she jumped. It was a good thing, too, because he had been poised to charge in after Quake—but instead he skidded to a stop and snatched Raven out of the air. Phoenix shot past them and down into the building.

The roaring had already stopped. Quake lay on his side, with Tai limp in the saddle, tangled up with the water elemental. A tiny grey hatchling struggled to pull its head up out of the lava... but there was no other movement. No sound.

Phoenix howled.

* * *

Their search for the missing Watts had just gone from frantic to desperate when Fang spotted something out of the corner of his eye. A flash of fire in a nearby office building—he couldn't see who had done it. He wasn't even sure which side they'd been on.

He almost ignored it altogether, until a long, sinuous shape slipped out a gaping hole in one wall. Metal glinted on the hybrid's head, but this one had a rider.

"It's him!" he shouted, and charged. Pit and Specter were right behind him—then his stomach twisted as he realized.

"Go!" Storm barked, and gave Ruby a push towards Jade with her nose. She went.

Fang didn't have to look to know that she was following them from the ground. But there was no time to worry about it—the hybrid was already in the air, and he wasn't alone. An even bigger one followed right after him, with two tiny dragonets trailing behind her.

Now that they were fully in the light, it was obvious that it was Watts on the lead hybrid's back. But there weren't many people around who would recognize him—and they were already away from the heart of the fighting, with only a few allies nearby scuffling with other hybrids. None Fang recognized. None that could join the fight without bringing at least two enemies with them.

So the four of them flew alone, as quickly as they could—which wasn't quick enough. Fang couldn't tell exactly what elements the hybrid in the lead had in him, but his wings were oddly-shaped. Huge compared to his body size, like a wind dragon's, but long and thin in a way that theirs usually weren't. Whatever it was, he was obviously holding back to let the other hybrid keep up, even though he was smaller and carrying Watts. In a fair chase, there was no way they'd catch them.

Good thing this wasn't a fair chase. Pit's freckles started to glow, and the hybrid's wings stalled. He swerved hard to the left, then to the right, as he fought to keep flapping. The distance between them halved.

Watts turned in the saddle. The bigger hybrid mirrored the motion, twisting her neck around in midair and flying backwards so that she could look at them. Her eyes were bright scarlet, with narrow slitted pupils.

Her mouth opened. A spark shot towards them. They all dived out of the way, with Fang left the closest to it when it started to glow red. He flipped in midair to shield Yang, and an instant later the spark exploded.

Wind rushed through his wings as he plummeted, upside-down, towards the city below. He righted himself just in time, wincing a little as he did. The fire hadn't hurt at all, but he was pretty sure there'd be a huge bruise on his chest later.

They definitely had Watts' attention.

* * *

Four on four—not fun, as it turned out.

Yang yelped and ducked against Fang's neck as another explosion went off. He was getting better at dodging them, but that one had been close enough that she could feel the wash of heat from it. Her ears were still ringing from the first blast.

That was bad enough. Worse was the one Watts was riding—it didn't even look at them, just sped up and darted away. Only Pit kept it from escaping them. He weighed it down until it was flying only a little faster than they were, but that was all he could do while he was still using his powers to dodge attacks.

Even so, that still wasn't what Yang was worried about. Her eyes were on the hatchlings. One was a gleaming snow white, and made darting passes at everyone but Specter. Whenever it came too near, ice crystallized and spread over Fang's scales and her riding leathers. He melted them away, but Ruby and Blake didn't have that luxury. And if it came closer than that... one near-miss to Jade's tail left her scales cracked and bleeding, and she couldn't seem to move it afterwards. They wouldn't survive a direct hit.

The other didn't seem dangerous at all at first glance. Its was thin and drawn-looking, its flight wobbly and slow, but Yang recognized the tiny drops of silver that trailed from the corners of its eyes. Goodwitch had been sick for hours after one touch. Maybe dragons would fare better... but she didn't want to risk it.

"Weiss!" Ruby pointed towards the icy hatchling. Then she gestured from Blake and Pit to Watts, and finally nodded at Yang and then waved a hand towards the slit-pupiled hybrid. Nobody was going to try to fight the silver hatchling.

Taller buildings rose up on either side, as Watts and the quick hybrid dived down lower. Yang urged Fang to speed up, hoping she could get them in biting range of the slit-pupiled hybrid. Ruby followed right beside her, the others just behind them.

The slit-pupiled hybrid shot off another spark. Fang tensed, ready to dive out of the way—but it wasn't aimed at them. It struck the lower floors of a building on their left, blowing out all the windows and shattering most of the walls. The whole thing groaned and started to tip sideways.

Pit pulled up so sharply that he almost flew into the killing cold radiating from the icy hatchling. His freckles glowed silver, and the trajectory of the falling building shifted—it went left instead of forward, until it knocked into its next-door neighbor instead. Alarms went off, and the other building started to make alarming groaning noises... but at least it hadn't had a full swing across the street to build up momentum first.

It only took him a few seconds, but that was enough for Watts to put several hundred more feet of distance between them. Fang snarled and threw himself forward, sweeping low over the streets below in order to dodge the silver dragonet. At the last second Yang spotted a flash of silver—a droplet that had fallen from the hatchling's muzzle. She tugged on the reins and directed him sideways to avoid it, and he barely recovered in time to avoid smashing into an overpass.

Yang only caught a glimpse of the tail, and was so preoccupied she hardly noticed. By the time she did a double-take and turned to look at it, there was nothing there.

Underneath the overpass, six silver eyes fixed themselves on the sky.


	113. Detach

**Well. It's... certainly been A Week, hasn't it? Skjlksjg**

**Anyways! I hope everyone stays safe and healthy, aaaaand here's a dragon distraction!**

* * *

**113\. Detach**

* * *

The world should have stopped. All the hybrids and the fires and the distant roars should have gone quiet and still, while Phoenix dived in to save Quake and Tai.

But the din only got worse, and it was all Tempest could do not to leap in after them, even though she knew she'd make it harder for Phoenix. Seconds dragged by. She knew she should be paying attention to the hybrids attacking them, but she couldn't do it. So she hunkered down over the eggs and waited and waited until she could hardly breathe.

It felt like an eternity, but it couldn't have been more than half a minute before Phoenix emerged again. In only a glance, Tempest knew something was wrong. Tai hung limp from her jaws by the back of his riding jacket, his face and hair streaked with ash. Quake wasn't with her.

Tempest surged forward. Was he stuck? Could she not lift him? He was heavy, wasn't he, and there was only one of her, and what if there wasn't time to find another fire dragon—

"I'm sorry," Phoenix said miserably. Gently, she bent her head to lay the human on the grass. He was breathing, though he wheezed on every inhale. "He was already—and I needed to get Tai..."

Qrow hit the ground and stumbled, skidding to a halt beside Tai. He swayed and almost fell over when he put a hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat. Raven followed him at a walk, hesitating like she expected someone to stop her. Salty moved towards the building as if in a daze.

"Stay here," Phoenix told them, and darted back into the burning building. Tempest stared blankly after her—why was she going back inside? Why was _anyone _still doing _anything?_

"Hey!"

She turned her head. Whisper was talking to them, her ears drawn back. "We need help over here!"

The eggs.

Tempest hesitated—but Salty was already crouching protectively over Tai and Qrow and Raven. So she rushed into the fray with a roar that left her throat raw. _It's not their fault,_ she told herself, but it was so hard to hold onto that when all she could see was Tai on the ground and Phoenix's drooping ears and the place where Quake had disappeared.

Soon most of the eggs were gone, carried off by other dragons to relative safety. The attacks of the hybrids slackened off as more of their side arrived. Tempest kept on fighting, desperate for something to distract her.

There was a groan behind her. Tempest twisted around, ignoring a hybrid that was trying to gnaw on her shoulder. Tai pushed himself onto his side and started to cough. Raven's hands twitched, like she wanted to reach out. Qrow put a hand on his back and helped him sit up.

"What's... where's..."

Tempest pushed the hybrid biting her away and bounded over to Tai, pushing her muzzle against his chest. He'd been there for her, when—the memory was still jagged and sharp to the touch, even after all this time, and she shied away from it. But she curled protectively around Tai, nuzzling his hair as Qrow held his hand and told him what had happened.

He didn't roar and thrash and claw like she had. The only noise he made was a little huff, like the air had been knocked out of him, before he fell back against Qrow's shoulder. He didn't speak. Didn't even cry. Just... went away. Tempest whimpered and bumped his shoulder with her nose. She didn't want Tai to go away.

Tempest was so focused on him that she hardly even heard Phoenix land. She looked up, then, and felt her insides twist. Maybe part of her still hadn't believed it, had been expecting her to come back with Quake slung across her back.

Instead, a tiny grey hatchling hung limp from her jaws, trembling and coughing up gobs of molten rock. Tempest tensed, but he didn't seem to be making any more. And, when she looked closer, it didn't look like he _was _the one who'd made all the lava in the first place. Especially since more of the stuff was still oozing out of the main building.

"He was drowning," Phoenix said, and put him down. He didn't move to attack them—only curled up in a ball with his head tucked underneath one trembling wing. The metal plate was still on his head, but it had buckled and warped. They were tough, but apparently not tough enough to survive under lava for several minutes.

Tempest looked away. She felt like she should be glad to see him free, but all she could think was that she wished Phoenix had come out with Quake instead. But she hadn't, and that meant he was gone, _really _gone, and what were any of them supposed to do now?

"We need to go," said Raven.

Tempest snarled at her, baring her teeth. Phoenix yelped and moved between them.

"Don't—"

"They're running away." Raven grabbed the straps dangling from Phoenix's saddle. It wasn't enough to hide her shaking hands. "The Council are running away, and if we don't stop them they're going to _get away with it."_

She whirled on Qrow and Tai. "So _get up, _and let's go _kill _them."

Tempest was about to snap at her again for talking to Tai like that—but it seemed to bring a little life back into his eyes. He stood up.

"It has to stop here," he said. He sounded dazed, like he was half asleep. "It has to, or what was the point?"

Salty growled. Qrow took that as his cue to swing up into the saddle. Tempest knelt down beside Tai, and waited for him to climb into the empty saddle on her back. She'd agreed to wear one just in case...

Just in case wasn't supposed to mean _this._

* * *

The chase moved upward.

There wasn't any other choice. As long as they were above the rooftops, Watts couldn't slow them down by blowing up buildings. But that meant all the slit-pupiled hybrid's attention was on them.

Jade snarled and banked to one side to avoid another glowing spark. Her eyes were fixed on Watts—she wanted nothing to do with his hybrids. It was _him _that did it. His fault Emerald was gone.

"Easy!" Ruby shouted, patting her back. Jade shook herself and refocused—the hybrids weren't the ones responsible for any of this, but they _were _dangerous.

Behind her, an excited whistle cut through the howling wind. Jade risked a glance and saw Specter had caught the icy dragonet and was holding her against his chest with one paw. She was scratching and biting and struggling to get free, but she was tiny and didn't seem to be doing much real damage.

An ominous whistling sound made her ears twitch. Jade ducked instinctively and winced as a blast of hot air washed against her side. A miss, but if it had been any nearer it could have knocked her right out of the sky.

If the slit-pupiled hybrid was getting tired, she didn't show it. Fang pulled up beside her and did his best to disrupt her flight, darting in and slashing at her wings, but the silver dragonet caught on and flew closer to her. He had to back off or risk being touched—Jade wasn't sure why they were so adamant about not doing that, but after seeing Pit almost crash headfirst into a building to avoid him she decided to take their cue and keep her distance.

The hybrid leading the chase took a hairpin turn. Pit pulled on him at just the right moment to put him on a collision course for a nearby building. He had to slow down to avoid it, and Jade managed to slip past another explosive spark and finish the turn only thirty feet behind him.

_You're mine, _she thought, her eyes narrowing on the back of Watts' head.

The hybrid he was riding twisted its head around. Its eyes met hers. An arc of brilliant white passed between its horns and her stomach. Jade tumbled in midair for a gut-wrenching second, too stunned to spread her wings. When she finally recovered she was falling sideways, dazed, her ears pricking up at the sound of a whistle—

She realized too late to dodge. All she could do was roar, _"No!"_ and force one wing open. She spun around so that it was her chest, not her back, which took the brunt of the blow.

A sharp crack.

_Never again, _Jade thought, and started to fall.

* * *

"Jade!"

They all lunged to help her at the same time.

Pit dropped his powers away from Watts' hybrid and himself, focusing all of his energy on slowing her fall. Fang lunged forward and managed to snag the straps of her saddle in his claws. Specter streaked past them, flying straight at the slit-pupiled hybrid and wrenching her head to one side. He recoiled the instant her aim was ruined, like he'd just been burned.

Pit hit the ground, but he hardly noticed. All his focus was on Jade. With Fang helping him, he deposited her gently on the ground beside him. But while were his powers focused on her, Watts and his hybrid shrank alarmingly quickly into the distance.

"Get them!" Pit roared, when Fang hesitated. "I'll stay!"

Blake fumbled her way out of the saddle and sprinted towards Jade. That left Pit free to focus just as intensely as he had before—but this time, all his efforts went into stopping Watts' hybrid. He fought him with every beat of his gigantic wings. So Pit grabbed his left wing and forced him into a sharp spiral. He corrected the dip seconds later, but Specter was already right on his tail.

The slit-pupiled hybrid took a shot. Fang got there just in time, plowing into her and sending the attack way off-course. Specter reached out and grabbed one of the quick hybrid's wings. Between him and Pit, Watts' escape slowed to a crawl. And, seconds later, Fang caught up to them both. The slit-pupiled hybrid couldn't shoot at them without hurting Watts, and there would be a similar risk if the silver hatchling came near them.

Pit let his powers drop and swayed on his feet, breathing hard. He turned his head towards Blake—she and Ruby were examining Jade's chest, and when Blake noticed him looking she called out, "Broken ribs, we think!"

His legs went out from under him.

_Broken ribs. _Jade probably wasn't feeling great, right now... but she'd be okay.

It took everything Pit had not to fall asleep on the spot, and instead to crawl towards Watts, Fang, and Specter.

* * *

_Damn them!_

Doctor Watts waved his hands frantically, the rings on each of his fingers glittering in the light. Trying to think of some response his hybrids could make that wouldn't kill him in the crossfire.

Decades of work. The contract from the Council that should have been his, that James had given to _Polendina. _All his machinations against them, and Jacques, and Cinder... _damn them!_

"Detach them!" shouted the Schnee girl over the wind, as three dragons and a hatchling plummeted towards the ground. "We know you can!"

Watts sneered back. "You _children _won't let us hit the ground."

The fire dragon lashed out with its claws. Watts jumped and held out a hand, like that would somehow stop the attack—but it hadn't been aimed at him. His legs slipped free of the straps that had just been severed, until he was falling a few feet above the hybrid.

The blonde one smirked. "Who said anything about _us?"_

Watts made the mistake of looking down. The tops of buildings rushed past on either side, and the street below yawned wide like an open mouth.

"Detach!" he shouted, flailing his arms in an attempt to catch the hybrid's saddle. Which actually _wasn't _a verbal command his devices would recognize, but he didn't like his chances of arguing such a fine point while in midair. So he shouted nonsense and then did the actual work of setting the devices to idle by twisting his fingers. That done, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself. He heard the _snap _of dragon wings opening against the wind. A swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach as they slowed. Then, impact.

Watts bounced off the hybrid's back and cracked his head against the pavement. He lay there a long moment, groaning, fumbling to reactivate the hybrids—

A gust of hot air washed over him, smelling strongly of sulfur. He looked up, directly into the open mouth of the fire dragon. Watts swallowed convulsively.

"Get them _off," _Yang snapped. "All the way."

"You _idiots! _Do you have any idea what they'll—"

A shiver ran down his spine. Watts turned, and staggered backwards. The ice dragon was standing over him, its fathomless black eyes boring into his own.

_"Nnow," _it hissed.

He detached the devices of the four hybrids nearest him... and pandemonium broke out.

One, the ice and wind hybrid, lunged for the ice dragon. It caught the hybrid before could attack, pinning it under its paws. The water and gravity hybrid, which had still been flying, lost its bearings in an instant and started to fall. The enemy hybrid caught it with its powers and lowered it gently to the ground.

A tail whipped towards Watts—his wind and lightning hybrid. He threw himself to the ground and rolled frantically away, bracing himself for the next attack. But it wasn't an attack at all. Every limb kicked and thrashed, sending it crashing into the fire dragon. They both went down in a heap. High above, the lightning and fire hybrid let out a deafening roar and smashed into the side of a building. It fell several stories and landed badly, with one wing clearly broken.

Watts couldn't have imagined a better distraction.

He turned on his heel and sprinted down the street, eyes scanning frantically back and forth for somewhere to hide. Escape wouldn't be the end of this, of course—he'd have to withdraw as many of his hybrids as possible from the battle at the Council Headquarters, if he wanted to be sure he'd have at least one device make it back to him. Without the distraction, James would come looking for him, but he knew how to lie low. Jacques might still be willing to fund him, if he played his cards right...

Something smashed into his back and bore him painfully to the ground. When he tried to twist his head to look, he found the fire dragon glaring down at him. The other hybrids were still panicking and thrashing about, but the enemy hybrid and the earth dragon were doing their best to help. _Emerald's _earth dragon—another damn loose end.

"You're not going _anywhere,"_ Yang said, glowering down at him from the dragon's back. "Now _let them go."_

"Do you _really _want me to do that?" Watts raised an eyebrow pointedly at the fire and lightning hybrid, which was shrieking in pain and cradling its broken wing.

That wiped the smirks off their faces, at least. He scowled as the three other teenagers approached him, looking down at where he was _still _pinned under a dragon's paw.

"You did something else," Ruby said. "Before. When we were falling."

"I idled them," he replied. Slowly, in consideration of his audience. "It's the mode I set them to when I don't want them to do anything. Especially things like clawing themselves to ribbons or smashing into buildings."

"Okay. So idle them."

The others turned to stare at her. Ruby made a face. "I don't like it either, but if we get rid of all the devices at once we'll be stuck with the same problem we have now. Maybe worse. This way we can take them off one at a time, when the hybrids are somewhere safe."

"You heard her." Yang nudged him in the side with her boot. "Do it."

He wiggled his fingers.

"How are we supposed to know if he actually stopped them all?" Weiss demanded.

Watts, who had just directed a force of about two dozen hybrids to fly to his location, smiled pleasantly. "What would I have to gain by lying to you, know that you've caught—"

Blake pulled out a scroll and held it to her ear. "Sun? Are any of the hybrids moving right now?"

_Damn it._

He idled almost all of them—leaving a few to come to his rescue, of course.

"Try again," Blake drawled.

Something struck him in the ribs. Watts swore and flailed at the offending boot. Yang again.

Watts idled all the hybrids, but kept a careful eye on Blake—the moment she closed her scroll, he could—

Weiss started snatching the rings off his fingers.

"There," Yang said pleasantly. "That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

Watts opened his mouth to say something scathing, but the retort died in his throat. He could feel... something. A tremor coming from underneath him.

Blake twisted around, her ears twitching. "Guys? I... think we have a problem."

"Oh, for—what _now?" _Weiss burst out.

The tremors grew stronger. Like a rain of artillery hitting the ground. Or the footsteps of something _absurdly _enormous.

Yang's eyes widened. _"Shit!"_

Hybrid 3 came barreling around the corner. It tried to turn, clumsily, and crashed into several shopfronts. They crumpled like they'd been made of cardboard.

"Hey!" Ruby ran forward. The others scrambled to follow as the giant shook off the impact and started running again. Every footfall shook the earth, by sheer weight rather than any kind of elemental power, and it was headed right for them. All six eyes fixed on Watts.

"Let me up!" he shouted, struggling against the fire dragon's paws. "It's going to—you _dimwits, _I thought you'd killed it, not set it loose!"

No one was listening to him. Ruby kept sprinting directly towards Hybrid 3, her hands spread wide. "Wait!" she shouted. "It's okay, he's down! We're going to get all the devices off!"

Hybrid 3 did not understand human speech. Watts had proved this conclusively, and just as he expected her impassioned plea did about as much good as talking to a brick wall.

He'd always known it would be other people's stupidity that killed him, but this seemed too cruel.


	114. Silver

**Alright, so. After this chapter, there are two more epilogue-ish chapters, and then... that's it! And man does it feel weird to be almost at the end of something that's been in the works more than a year.**

* * *

**114\. Silver**

* * *

The building Phoenix led them to was empty.

Qrow let loose a string of curses and twisted in the saddle, looking all around for any sign of where the bastards might have gone. If they got away after all _this—!_

But there was nothing. Just a smoking, battle-scarred street, deserted except for them. Most of the fight had moved closer to the Headquarters building, now that the big fucker was gone and the eggs were in danger.

"We'll have to spread out," Raven decided. "Qrow, you head east. Tai, west. I'll take the north."

Qrow opened his mouth to snap at her. After all these years, did she seriously think she could waltz back in and act like some kind of leader? He never got the chance. A flurry of activity behind him drew all their attention.

A group of four hybrids streaked across an open space between two buildings, then disappeared again in a flash. Seconds later, Glacier came tearing around a corner and tumbled nose-over-tail into a clump of bushes. He shook himself off, jostling Whitley on his back until he turned an impressive shade of green, and started sniffing the air.

_"Glacier!" _Winter's voice. "What did I just say? Get back here!"

She and Steele crested a hill with Ragnar galloping alongside them. Glacier paused, glanced guiltily over his shoulder, and whistled.

Salty perked up. "What is it?" Qrow asked.

"Aye-brids." He barked at Glacier, who cocked his head to one side and stared blankly back. Salty sighed and pointed with his tail in the direction they'd disappeared. "Run 'way."

The hybrids hadn't run away from _anything _all day. If they were starting now... it wasn't because they were afraid, it was because someone wanted them somewhere else. "Shit!" Qrow blurted. "That way, that way, go, go, go!"

Raven and Tai seemed to get it. Whitley and Oscar exchanged baffled looks, but Ragnar must have gotten a better explanation from Salty because he roared and sped up. Glacier followed. Winter, who had no idea that any of the Council had escaped in the first place, scowled and charged after Whitley and Glacier. He did his best to explain as they ran, but he wasn't sure how much they understood over the fighting in the background.

They plunged into the city proper. Qrow swore every time they turned a corner and found nothing. He started swearing a lot more when they turned a corner and found Storm, and only Storm, wrestling with two of the renegade hybrids.

Three others winged past her. Steele jumped at one of them, bringing it back down to earth and pinning it there. Glacier went after another, but he missed and wound up crashing shoulder-first into a shop-front and caving it in.

It didn't matter. An instant later they... stopped. All three fluttered gently to the ground and stood there, staring placidly at nothing. The ones Storm had been fighting did the same—one went limp in her grip, and the other backed a few paces away from her and sat.

The sudden silence was... unsettling.

"The fuck?" Qrow said. Salty walked up to the biggest of the hybrids and waved a paw in its face. It didn't react at all.

Tai skipped right past confusion and into desperation. "Storm!" He and Tempest crowded around her, the older wind dragon licking at scratches on her shoulders and chest, the human wild-eyed and frantic. "Where are the girls?"

"Ffly," Storm said, craning her neck over her shoulder.

Of course. Ruby wouldn't leave Storm behind unless she had to—so whatever they were doing, they'd needed to move fast. A chase. It must be the same Councilors that had escaped, and with the hybrids frozen like this...

An alarming groaning sound made Qrow jump. He looked to his left, and stared open-mouthed at a skyscraper that had collapsed sideways. It leaned heavily on its neighbor, and in the middle floors he could see the silhouettes of people climbing down the stairs. Already they were streaming out the doors—then hurrying away when they caught sight of the dragons outside.

What the hell did those kids _do?_

* * *

"Uh... sir?" The Flight Squad Rider pointed at his opponent—who had, without warning, sat down and started to ignore him. "What... um...?"

"That is a very good question, soldier," James said. He was having some difficulty believing it himself. "Penny? Any ideas?"

"They appear to have received some sort of idle command." She prodded one of the hybrids gently with her nose. It didn't seem to notice. A wire gave out in her neck, and her head drooped against her chest. James winced. For Penny this was at worst a mild annoyance, but a less-than-rational part of him was having trouble ignoring the fact that his dragon's throat had been torn open.

Not the time. He shot another glance at the clumps of hybrids. They were even eerier like this, with their blank, empty stares, than when they'd been trying to kill him. James shuddered, then addressed any riders that could hear him. "Keep an eye on them. Whatever this is, it might not be permanent. While we have the chance, we should do what we can to track down the Council."

The fight turned into a search. A few dragons stayed with the eggs, in case the hybrids started to attack again, but most of the army was free to help. The tight corridors in the Headquarters building proved to be an obstacle, but even so it didn't take long for them to find the Council. Or rather, the door they were hiding behind.

It was in the basement. Several feet thick and solid tungsten, the sort of thing that would take days to melt through. James had to leave the cockpit in Penny's chest to see it, since it was at the other end of a narrow staircase.

He knocked with his metal arm. Every hit echoed ominously. "You might as well come up," James called out, even though he wasn't sure they could hear him in there. "Your hybrids are frozen. You've lost." He wasn't sure _why _the hybrids weren't moving, but he wasn't above taking credit for it if that meant this would end faster.

Silence.

James sighed. "Alright," he said, backing up to the top of the stairs and signaling to a group of earth dragons. "Let's dig them out."

It took a little over an hour, even with almost twenty dragons helping. They went in shifts, using their powers and their enormous paws in tandem. They broke through concrete one splinter at a time until finally the ground gave way under one of the dragons' feet.

James strode over to the hole and looked down. "Open the door," he said flatly. "It's over."

They didn't put up much of a fight. In the end, only eight of the nine Councilors were down there—Aegolius, the eldest of all of them, hadn't survived the trip here. Too much stress, according to Gosling. She shot him a venomous look to go with it.

The man had been over a hundred, and they'd all been given every possible opportunity to avoid a confrontation like this. Even if he believed her, James had worse things on his conscience.

"I assume I have your unconditional surrender?" he said, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

Gosling pressed her lips into a thin line. "You do."

Funny, how anticlimactic those two words were. Even the Councilors were underwhelming—Gosling herself looked much smaller in the flesh than she did as a crisp silhouette. James sighed and gestured to a few of his riders. "Keep them under guard for now. You—I want a head-count. And you, find somewhere we can start freeing them. We'll need gloves, too, for the ones that aren't safe to touch. This isn't over until we've destroyed every last one of those devices."

People stared at him.

"Move!" James barked. They moved.

* * *

In the end, they followed the footprints.

Tai swallowed hard as Tempest bounded past another one—they took up an entire lane, and he could see the imprints of far too many toes smashed into the pavement. It had to be the giant. He just didn't understand _why _when it had been freed.

And then they turned a corner, and it was obvious.

A tall, thin man in an overcoat sprinted towards them at full-tilt, his eyes wild and his hair disheveled. The girls were right behind him—but they weren't exactly chasing him. They were too busy fleeing from the giant as it clawed huge gouges out of the street, roaring in that way it had that made his chest ache.

There were four other hybrids about—one had a wing that hung limp at its side, clearly broken. The other was snarling and growling, its eyes fixed on Watts. It leaped for him, but the other got in the way and slashed at its belly. It howled and backwinged into the wall of a nearby building. Before the one with the broken wing could finish it off, Fang jumped between them and snarled.

A tiny dragonet flew at the giant's eyes, squeaking ferociously despite the fact that its opponent's teeth were longer than its entire body. The giant shook its head and snorted, slapping it out of the air with one paw and sending it skidding into a massive puddle that had formed under a shattered fire hydrant. The water froze the instant the dragonet touched it. It struggled and whined, but couldn't get free of the ice.

The last hybrid had curled into a ball in the center of the street, between Tempest and the running man. Shaking and whimpering, and not doing much of anything. That made one that wasn't an immediate threat, at least.

"Dad!"

Ruby waved her arms at him. Tai blanched. She wasn't even mounted, just running on her own two feet at the giant's heels. "Ruby! Get away from—"

"Don't let him get away!"

The fleeing man was almost on them, now. But as he sprinted past the shaking dragonet, it uncurled and launched itself at his feet. He tripped and tumbled head-over-heels onto the street. Then he yelped and scrabbled backwards, cursing and kicking his legs, as if he was trying to shake off the creature's touch.

It climbed his pant leg, then up his jacket towards his head. He shrieked and tore off one of his shoes, batting at the hatchling until it finally reached his face. Then it touched its nose to his forehead, just once, and collapsed onto his chest.

An instant later the man's eyes rolled up, and he slumped to the ground underneath it. A trail of silver traced his face, glinting in the light.

Tai stared, open-mouthed, until the memory came back to him. The Vacuan desert at night. Handing Glynda a pair of leather gloves so she could handle the doomed dragonet. Burying the tiny body afterwards.

The giant hadn't seen that, and didn't seem to understand that the man was dead. It growled and bounded forward, its massive paws destroying the street underneath it. And, to Tai's horror, Ruby ran _towards _it.

* * *

A lot of people were shouting. Blake was pretty sure she was one of them, but the sound was strangely muted, like the whole scene was suspended in honey. Everything happened so slowly, but she couldn't move fast enough to stop it.

Ruby jumped in front of the charging giant, both her hands out. Its eyes burned with rage and hatred and fear, and Blake knew in her bones that it wasn't going to stop. Why should it, when the person it should have been able to trust implicitly had enslaved it instead? Storm leaped in front of her rider, spreading her good wing wide and shrieking her defiance. Ruby screamed, and—

And the giant balked. Its attack went wide, and it clawed open the street in front of them with one swipe of its paw. Then it roared, its tail lashing behind it, making Blake cringe and clap her hands over her ears. But it wouldn't last—already the giant was shaking its head and snarling.

She sprinted for the downed figure of Watts, stripping off her riding jacket as she went. The silver hatchling stirred weakly when she knelt down, careful to avoid the streaks of silver pooling on the asphalt. Blake draped the jacket over it and picked it up, wary all the while of the giant only a few dozen feet away.

It slammed its shoulder against a nearby building, bringing the whole thing down and growling at the rubble. Then its tail snapped out, sending a car through the upper story of a warehouse. Blake dearly hoped this street was as empty as it looked.

Behind her, Pit started to growl. She turned and found him in a defensive crouch, his hackles rising as the hybrid Watts had been riding came closer. But he relaxed slightly when it became clear that it wasn't paying Blake any mind at all—its eyes were fixed on the dead man. She swallowed, and cradled the silver dragonet against her chest.

"He's gone, now," she said. "It's okay."

The giant approached. Blake backed away with the bundle in her jacket. Once the little one was out of danger, Ruby didn't bother trying to stop it, and... well, it wasn't like they _could _even if they wanted to. Not for long, anyway. She just hoped it didn't—

A paw came down.

—touch him.

Blake swallowed hard and looked away from the place Watts used to be.

The giant let out another roar, its head twisting this way and that like it was looking for the next threat. Ruby kept her distance, but Blake could hear her talking, a steady stream of soft reassurances. It shuddered once and sat down hard on its haunches. This time, when it tried to growl, the sound petered off in a whine.

It wobbled, tipped sideways, and came down like a felled tree with a crash that shook the entire street. Ruby yelped and ran over to its head. But its gigantic side rose and fell steadily. It was only unconscious.

_"Gods."_

Ruby froze where she had been patting the sleeping giant's jaw, which was as high as she could reach. "Um. Hey, dad!"

There was a brief scuffle, as Tempest and Storm and Tai all competed to see who could squeeze the breath out of her faster. Blake managed a small smile at the sight of them all tangled together. It dropped when his shoulders started to shake.

"Dad?" Ruby squirmed out from under Tempest's paw so that she could look at his face. "Wait, where's...?" His breath hitched. Then he wrapped both arms around her, burying his face in her shoulder. Feeling like an intruder, Blake backed off and looked around for anything else that needed dealing with.

The icy hatchling had been freed from the puddle by Steele and Specter. They crouched over it—Specter nuzzling its side and whining sympathetically, Steele in a defensive crouch with his ears pricked up in case of more trouble. As she watched, Glacier ambled over to them and bent down to peer at it curiously. It tried to bite his nose. He snorted and blew a puff of mist into its face. Steele snapped at them both and nudged the little one closer to his chest.

Fang and Phoenix circled the other hybrid, the one with the explosive powers. It growled and hissed at them whenever they got too close, and when Raven held up a roll of bandages it might have tried to blow her up if Salty hadn't rushed over and barked something to calm it down.

Ragnar moved over to Jade and sniffed at her injury, snorting in displeasure when she winced. He draped a wing over her back and purred softly to distract her from the pain. Oscar scrambled off his back and went to retrieve some of the ice left behind by the hatchling, which the older dragon helped her hold to her chest.

The bundle in Blake's arms squirmed. She flinched and knelt to lay the jacket on the ground. The little hybrid wobbled out, sniffing the air. It looked healthier than the one that had hatched with them in Vacuo... but not by much. Blake knelt down and, after checking to make sure there weren't any holes in her gloves, pet the dragonet gently on the head. It squeaked and butted its head against her fingers, its eyes wide and shining like it had never been touched before.

It probably hadn't.

Blake had a mad impulse to rip off the glove and give it just _one _memory of a friendly touch without leather in the way, consequences be damned. But Pit gave her a warning look, and she kept the glove on. There was no way of knowing if she'd only get sick like Goodwitch had, or...

She did not look at Watts.

Had it meant to do that? Or had it only been looking for affection from someone who would never have given it? Blake couldn't tell. She just kept petting it, murmuring softly under her breath, as it slowly sank in that it was really over. The Council had lost. Watts was dead.

Now it was just a matter of dealing with the mess they'd left behind.


	115. Cumulus

**Hello folks! In this second-to-last chapter, nobody knows what the hell they're supposed to do next, but Whitley is considering a career as a professional disaster.**

* * *

**115\. Cumulus**

* * *

"Yo!" Russel called out, into the oppressive silence that had fallen over the battlefield. "Why are they still all over the place? I thought we were bringing them to the courtyard!"

Pyrrha winced and pulled the hatchling in her arms a little closer to her chest. Jaune just sighed. "We are," he said. He picked up another dragonet from the ground, careful to support its broken tail. It didn't so much as blink at being lifted. "There are a lot of them. And some of them are kinda heavy."

She looked down and bit her lip. The hatchling didn't stir. Only the slow rise and fall of its little chest proved that it was still alive. Its scales were a brilliant white, seeming to glow with inner light. It was so small, it couldn't have been alive more than a few days... and since Watts had apparently sped up their growth somehow, that meant it might have hatched as early as yesterday.

Harpy leaned over her shoulder to sniff the little one, then licked its back. It didn't react, but Pyrrha liked to think the comforting gesture still helped. With any luck, this one wouldn't remember any of this in a month's time—they could find it a rider, and it could grow up happy and healthy.

Some others...

Twiggy and Freya worked together to carry a glassy-eyed Tallow, with Ao Guang pacing alongside them and occasionally setting his paw against the fire dragon's flank to steady him. He wasn't emaciated like the other pit dragons had been, but there was definitely something wrong. When they last saw him he'd been the same size and age as most of their year's dragons. Now he was closer to Crucible's size, and there were a pair of strange bony protrusions sticking out behind his horns.

All the biggest hybrids were like that. A little... strange, once they grew beyond what was normally possible for dragons. Almost like...

"Any—gah!" Nora yelped as one of her charge's paws brushed against her skin, leaving a delicate pattern of frost on her shoulder. "Any luck finding the big one?"

Sky made a face. "I heard someone say it got out into the city. Lots of property damage, but it was in a mostly commercial area so I don't think there were many people around."

"Is it still hostile?" Ren asked. He carried another hatchling in his arms, carefully wrapped in a blanket so that it wouldn't shock him. It didn't seem to be able to turn its powers off, either.

"There aren't any more buildings coming down," Russel said. "So... probably not?"

They walked together to the open field, where a crowd of adult dragons waited. And there, one at a time, the hybrids were carried over to the General and their Professors. Goodwitch couldn't be much help with a screwdriver—a hybrid had coiled around her dominant arm and refused to be moved, so she mostly handed tools to Port. Slowly, methodically, they freed dragon after dragon.

Sometimes the hybrids cringed and cowered when the devices were removed. A rider would lead them away, murmuring soothingly as they went, maybe offering them a hand if they seemed receptive. They could get started on the next dragon quickly. And if they'd _all _been like that, they could easily have freed dozens of them at once.

But sometimes they started to thrash and scream, and even attack those closest to them. That was when the older dragons would come in, to hold them down and counteract their powers where they could.

A few of them sat silent and motionless on the sidelines—an acid-spitter, one that apparently breathed a deadly gas, and a few others whose powers were too dangerous to unleash right away. They would have to be taken care of later, in a more secure location.

Pyrrha didn't want to think about how they would deal with the ones that couldn't control their powers, or the giant for that matter. But she wanted even less to wonder about all the dead. On their side, and among the hybrids. Ilia had managed to salvage one of Watts' notebooks from the lava. He had kept careful track of all the hybrids—enough to know that there_ had _been a hundred and twenty-nine alive at the start of the battle.

So she gathered up motionless hatchlings, and helped the dragons on their team hoist larger hybrids onto their backs, all while trying not to think about what came after. And then it was done, and it was time to count the dead.

They couldn't let any devices loose into the world. That meant accounting for every single one that Watts had made—his spares, and the ones that had been used on the hybrids.

JNPR and CRDL worked together, each of them making their own separate counts so they could check one another's work. As they walked, Jaune moved up close to Pyrrha and murmured, softly so the others wouldn't hear, "Are you okay? You and Harpy can go help with the hatchlings, if you need to."

She shook her head.

_One. Two. Three..._

And regretted it, once they started.

_Four. Five._

Harpy walked close beside her, leaning down to nuzzle at her hair whenever she flinched. And she flinched six times. _Seven. Eight..._

They counted twenty-one, in all. CRDL got the same number, so they returned to the courtyard to talk to the teams who'd been tasked with counting the living hatchlings.

"We've got a hundred and seven. Somebody's missing one."

So they did their rounds, again, and under a pile of rubble Twiggy found a broken tail. She dug down, and uncovered a pair of hybrids coiled up together. Both dead.

Jaune's brow furrowed. "Uh, am I bad at math, or...?"

There was a frantic recounting. They got the same numbers—twenty-three dead and a hundred and seven alive. Two hundred and thirty.

"What the fuck?" Russel turned in a circle.

"Did you find the giant?" asked Neon, one of the students doing the live count. "Because we counted it as alive, but maybe—"

Ren shook his head. "No, we would have noticed that."

Pyrrha wandered into the crowd of living hybrids. Many of them shied away from her, but some stretched out their heads and looked at her so pitifully that she had to stop and pat their noses. One squeaked and squirmed out from between two of its fellows. It looked... oddly _wet._

Kneeling down, Pyrrha spotted a shard of eggshell stuck behind its ear and let out a startled laugh. "The eggs! One of them must have hatched during the fight."

She tried to focus on the way the little one squeaked and ruffled its tiny wings, and not on what conditions must have been like outside when it had emerged. Pyrrha straightened up and looked around. "Is there someone who can, um...?"

Harpy's ears went flat.

"Because I can't," Pyrrha added hastily.

Neon and Flint jogged off to search for someone who could bond with the newly hatched hybrid... but it didn't seem particularly distressed. Another dragonet lay beside it—bigger, but probably not much older. Their tails twined together, and the littler one nuzzled enthusiastically against the larger, just like T—just like Twiggy had Jaune when she was freshly hatched. The larger one purred whenever the baby cooed, and watched Pyrrha warily until she stepped away.

"Have they... bonded?"

"Wait, what?" Nora leaned over her shoulder to look. "Aww!"

"Found those two together."

They jumped and looked up, found a Flight Squad Rider standing with his hands in his pockets. "Little bugger didn't have a device, figured somebody must've gotten it off. But you said it hatched here?"

Pyrrha nodded. "I think so."

"Was the bigger one protecting it?" Ren asked.

"Nah. Other way 'round." The Rider grimaced and gestured at the older hatchling. Pyrrha stepped to the side and flinched when she saw that its left legs were missing. They'd been bandaged carefully, probably before the device was removed. "Tiny little shit almost bit my fucking hand off when I tried to pick it up."

The elder hatchling's ears went flat, and it hissed a warning.

"Didn't mean nothin' by it! Love the little fella. Real brave and, er, handsome."

Satisfied, it shut its eyes and went to sleep with the little one huddled under one of its wings.

Pyrrha smiled at the little heap one final time before walking away with her team. "What's next?" she asked. "Any word on the giant?"

"Nope!" Nora grabbed one of her arms. "We're going... to sleep!"

Pyrrha pulled away. "But... we're not even close to finished. There's still dozens of hybrids who need to be freed, and we have to figure out where they're all going to stay, and—"

"That can be somebody else's problem long enough for all of us to take a nap," insisted Nora. But her eyes lingered on Pyrrha.

"I'm fine." Her hands, which apparently hadn't gotten the message, balled themselves into fists.

Ren lay a hand on her shoulder. "You're allowed not to be."

Jaune took her other hand and squeezed once. "It's been... a lot for all of us. And—"

"I know," she said, too quickly. Two familiar snouts pressed against her back. There was a huff, and a waft of warm, dry air stirred her hair. "I do," she repeated, calmer now, glancing over her shoulder into a pair of concerned yellow eyes. "It's been one thing after another for so long... I don't know what's supposed to come next."

Harpy flicked an ear. Turned her head, with terrible slowness, to stare deeply into Pyrrha's eyes. There was something flickering there, an answer to a question she didn't know how to—

The hybrid yawned pointedly.

Ren was polite enough not to laugh. Jaune tried, but a little snicker slipped out from behind his hand. Even Twiggy, Guang and Freya chuffed in amusement. Nora rolled her eyes and said between giggles, "I told you!"

* * *

Huo was, to no one's surprise, much grumpier when they told him he had to rest his legs for a few days than he had been when the giant broke them.

"You _don't _want to be helping right now," Zircon told him, shivering even in the warmth of the makeshift stall they'd set up for Huo. It had been one of the rooms where Watts had stored the hybrids... but he tried not to think about that too much. Or about the hybrids they'd been trying to help all afternoon, the ones that still wouldn't eat or move or look at anything. They were even scarier than the ones that liked to bite.

"I want to be _moving,"_ Huo whined, wiggling his good legs. "They're letting Guang follow Ren around!"

Nymph huffed. "You don't have to follow Sun, he's right there."

"Hey to you too," Sun said, when she jabbed her nose at him, and scratched her under the chin.

"We brought you guys a present," Neptune added, producing a sheaf of papers from behind his back. "Watts' notes."

Huo's eyes lit up. His tail wagged as Neptune placed them in front of him and then hastily backed away. The papers vanished in a puff of flame.

Sun kicked out at the pile of ash, scattering it everywhere. Sage coughed into his arm, and Zircon coiled his tail protectively around his rider. Scarlet just nodded and said, with grim satisfaction, "That's the last of it. If we do our jobs right... no one will ever make one of those things again."

There was a long, heavy silence. Zircon padded over to the spot between Huo and Nimbus and lay down, with his brothers' scales warm against his sides and his tail twining with Nymph's. Sage settled against his chest.

"Damn," Sun said. "We actually won."

"Dude, you're just getting that now?" Neptune laughed and leaned into his shoulder.

"I mean, in my defense I'm pretty sure Huo wasn't the only one with a concussion."

"Speaking of kicks to the head," Scarlet said, "what... what happens now?"

Zircon whimpered. He'd been so focused on fighting the Council, and trying not to think about fighting the Council, that he hadn't thought at all about what would happen afterward. Sage patted his head, and he pushed his nose against his side, taking in the familiar smell that meant safety.

"Now... I suppose we can do what we want." Sage scratched behind his ears. "I don't know about any of you, but I'd like to go back to Beacon."

"Can we?" Scarlet wondered. "After, well... everything. Is it even open?"

"It'll have to be soon." Neptune glanced at the door to the room. This whole building was full of hybrids recovering from serious injuries. Outside, those whose wounds were mostly superficial lounged on the lawn and perched like gargoyles on the roof. Over a hundred of them in total, most still without riders. "Somebody will have to help them learn to control their powers, and I don't think Atlas can handle them all at once."

"How does that sound?" Sage asked Zircon. "Going back to Beacon."

He lay his head in his rider's lap and purred. Going home sounded like the best idea he'd heard in a long while.

* * *

Over the next several days, Whitley was introduced to a small army of Riders. They had polite questions about Glacier. They wanted to know how he'd come to bond with a dragon older than he was, and how he handled the challenges that came with such a rare elemental, and if perhaps he might be willing to—and that was about when Glacier got huffy and started snapping at them. But even if the big lug would let him, he wasn't interested in a dragonet.

It wasn't like he didn't get _why._ There were over a hundred hybrids, and even if some of them didn't want riders, they still needed dozens of willing humans to bond with them on short notice. But that was someone else's problem, or so he'd assumed. But Ragnar decided to make it his problem, which meant it became Glacier's and Oscar's problem, and that made it Whitley's problem too.

"I'm sorry about all this," Oscar said one morning, after they'd sat with Ragnar through another round of impromptu sight tests. Apparently it was something the Dragonries did, where older dragons would weigh a prospective student and decide whether or not to let them in. Glacier was fantastically unqualified for the job, and his habit of staring blankly at the people he was supposed to be judging didn't exactly inspire confidence, but Ragnar seemed to like having him there.

"It's fine." Whitley crouched to examine Glacier's right forepaw. He'd torn a nail at some point during all the fighting, and he didn't want it getting infected.

"I'm also sorry about. Um. Professor Goodwitch asked me—well, she asked Ragnar, I'm just along for the ride—but she asked if he'd come back to Beacon. To teach. Since they're sort of... understaffed and all."

"Oh." Whitley swallowed a surge of... _something._ Then he glanced up at Glacier, and the knot in his stomach disappeared. The great lizard was staring at Oscar, his head tilted to one side, and Whitley knew immediately that he would insist on going with them. "I suppose it could be interesting."

"You don't have to." The knot came back.

Whitley shifted from foot to foot. "Glacier wants to."

"Maybe." Oscar glanced behind him at where Ragnar stood. "But... what do _you _want to do?"

Whitley frowned. He... hadn't thought about that much. "I don't want to go back to Atlas," he decided. "Especially if Weiss and Winter actually try to arrest Father. The farther I am from _that _disaster, the happier I'll be."

Oscar rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess compared to all that, pretty much anything would sound better."

"Yes." Oscar winced. Whitley stared at him, baffled, then looked to Ragnar for help.

The earth dragon made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort.

Dragons, Whitley reflected, could be uniquely unhelpful when they wanted to.

"I'd like to stay with you. And Ragnar!" Whitley cleared his throat. "You've... well. Grown on me. A bit."

Oscar's face lit up. Ragnar chuffed and lay on his side, giving Whitley an uncomfortably knowing look.

"If you want," Whitley added. "I don't think either of us would be any good at teaching. No one ever told Glacier how to be a dragon, and they certainly didn't tell me how to be a Rider."

"I do!" blurted Oscar. "Want you to come. As long as you want to."

"Yes. That would be... agreeable."

Whitley shot a frantic look at the dragons. Glacier was watching them with his head tilted to one side, his tail twitching ever so slightly with boredom. Ragnar's gaze was a lot more focused, his ears perked up tall and his eyes wide.

What on _Remnant _was wrong with everyone all of a sudden? What was wrong with _Whitley? _Why was this conversation turning so horrifically awkward? He was a Schnee, he didn't stumble over his words like this. And why were they getting excited over going to Beacon when they'd been stranded out in the wilderness together for _months?_ The last time he'd seen anyone this inexplicably happy over something so stupid had been when Weiss was talking to that—

Oh. Oh _no._

"I need to speak to my sisters," Whitley said, and turned on his heel and r—made a tactical retreat.

He didn't actually mean to talk to either of them, but as he was walking away his mother noticed him and called out. Whitley wandered over, and found her sitting between Weiss and Winter and their dragons.

"Hello mother," he said. "Hello sisters. Still planning that hostile takeover?"

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yes. As soon as the hybrids are a little more settled. Someone needs to work on bringing them back _ethically, _and I certainly don't trust Father to do it."

"I could help." Both of his sisters and even mother turned to stare at him. Whitley hadn't quite meant to say that, and still wasn't sure why he had, but he wasn't going to back down now. "I assume you'll be returning to Beacon? We'd be close by, so it shouldn't be hard to find time to work on it."

"Are you... enrolling?" Winter asked, looking more baffled than Whitley had ever seen her.

"No." His ears heated up. "I'll just be... around. I don't particularly _enjoy _risking life and limb on a daily basis, you know. So if the two of you decide to orchestrate another coup, you're on your own."

"It wasn't a—" Winter started to say, but Weiss bowled right over her.

"That would be quite helpful, actually. It's been a while since I've been involved in the day to day of the company."

Whitley was probably just as out of the loop as she was, seeing as he'd been stranded in the woods for weeks, but he decided to ignore that. "Of course. You'll need someone to help you with the paperwork as well, if you want to carry on as a Rider and still have time to sleep."

"You didn't say you were going to Beacon," mother said, interrupting them before they had a chance to get into the weeds—which was probably for the best. Whitley didn't feel particularly up to nuanced discussions about corporate scheming right now. "Why do something like that if you don't want to be a Rider?"

On second thought, Whitley would much rather talk about cutthroat board members. Especially when Weiss' eyes narrowed, like a shark that had just scented blood.

"I like the weather in Vale," Whitley lied. "And I'm certainly not going anywhere near the manor while you two keep stirring up all the trouble you can find."

"He _funded _that monster," Winter grumbled. "We have to do something."

Mother just frowned, her brow furrowing in confusion. "But why _Beacon _of all places? It's a—" she glanced at Weiss—"a lovely place, I'm sure, but _really,_ if you need someplace to stay we can make other arrangements."

"No!" Whitley said, much too quickly. "No, there's no need for that. Glacier's gotten very attached to Ragnar, you see, so I have to go with them."

Weiss started to smirk.

"It's annoying, really," Whitley went on, his voice rising in slight panic. "But you know him, he never listens to anyone when he has his mind set on—"

"So you finally noticed, did you?"

Whitley went red, right from the tips of his ears to the hollow of his throat. _"Die."_

"Whitley!" mother burst out, horrified.

Weiss just laughed.

* * *

The new human was called Glynda, and it had to keep her in sight.

She walked across the shattered street. It trotted at her heels and whimpered whenever it slipped on a shard of pavement and fell behind. Her shoes made a soft, steady clicking sound. It wished it could force its own heartbeat to match.

The clicking stopped. Glynda turned, knelt down, and sighed. "Cumulus..."

It was called Cumulus. It had never had a name before, and even now it wasn't sure it needed one... but it liked when she said it like that. Warm.

"I need to help with the injured hybrids, now."

It licked her fingers. They smelled like leather, not latex. Strange, but good.

"Some of them are... quite bad. Do you want to stay outside?"

A jolt of adrenaline. It whined and buried its face in the crook of her arm, hoping she'd forget about the question. It hated when she asked questions.

"Look at me."

It poked its head out and met her eyes. The fear eased. Her voice was nice—strong and firm, but never angry.

"This is where you'll stay, if you don't want to see the others." She patted the ground. "It's safe here, and I'll be back very soon." Then she nodded towards the big room with the open roof, where Hy—Cumulus had stayed with the others before the battle. "If you want to come with me, we'll be in there. We can leave whenever you like, if it's too much."

It squeaked and shuffled its paws. She was going to make it choose, now. It wished she wouldn't do that. Maybe if it sat there long enough she would get bored and decide for it.

She held out one hand, palm-up. "Tap here if you want to stay." Then the other. "And here if you want to follow me."

It crawled between them and hid its head inside her jacket.

"That's alright. Take as long as you need."

This wasn't so bad. Inside the jacket was warm and dark and quiet. Safe.

It felt her flinch. "Tai..."

There was a heavy thump, somewhere nearby. It poked its head out to see, and found a man sitting on a bench on the other side of the road. He was all bright and warm colors, yellow and orange and brown, but somehow he looked grey. It grabbed her arm.

"Claws," she reminded it.

Oops. It shifted its grip so that it wouldn't scratch her. Then she made to stand up, and it squawked indignantly and clung on.

"I'm only walking over there," she said. "Would you like to come with me?"

More questions. It whined and wound itself around her feet, hoping she'd give up and stay still. But she took first one step, and then another, and if it didn't do something she'd get out of sight and—

It bolted after her, warbling anxiously and jumping up to snap at her hand. She bent to stroke its neck. "There, see? That's good. That's very good."

A familiar warmth bloomed in the pit of its stomach and spread outwards, all the way to the tip of its nose and the end of its tail. That was the one good thing about questions—no matter how it answered them, she always smiled afterwards.

The grey man had put his head in his hands, and didn't notice them approach. Glynda stopped, hesitated for a long moment, then pulled something out of her pocket. "Tai?"

He looked up. His eyes were distant and unfocused. Could humans lose the magic? "Oh. Glynda."

She sat down next to him, and it hopped up into her lap. It watched the man warily for a few seconds, but settled down with a yawn when he made no move to attack.

"Have you eaten anything today?" Glynda asked, and held out the thing from her pocket. It was shiny green, all wrapped up in plastic.

"Yeah. Some eggs. Yang made them."

"That's good." She pushed the thing into his unresisting hand. "Take it anyway."

He didn't seem to notice that she'd given him something. He just stared into the distance and said, "They were good."

"Hm?"

"The eggs." He clasped his hands together, accidentally squishing the plastic package. "I shouldn't... I didn't think I'd be able to eat."

"You need to eat," Glynda told him. She'd told Cumulus the same thing, over and over, even though its jaws hurt. But when the food was too hard, she'd found something soft for it to eat instead.

"I saw Tempest. Right after... she wouldn't eat. Didn't. For a long time. She was so angry and hurt and... and I'm just..."

"People grieve in different ways, Tai," Glynda reminded him. He didn't seem to hear.

"Sometimes I think I should be like that. Like them. I should scream and break things. But maybe I shouldn't, maybe I shouldn't be shutting down like this."

"Tai—"

"I don't... how do you do it? Just... keep going."

Silence. Then, "I had students that needed me. Now he needs me." She tickled Cumulus under the chin. It purred and squirmed onto its side so she could rub its belly. "As long as someone else is depending on me, I can't shut down. So I don't."

"I wish I worked like that."

"You need to give yourself time, Tai."

"Are you going to tell me it gets better?" he asked dully.

"No. I've heard that's supposed to happen after you process things, which is precisely what I've been avoiding. Miss Nikos would make a better role model."

The grey man leaned back and sighed. "How's the little one?"

"Better than most." A scritch under its chin. It wagged its tail. "I'm... not sure how much he understands."

"Is he biting you whenever you tell him to do something? I heard that's been a problem with some of them."

"Quite the opposite, actually. He seems... unsettled, when I don't tell him what to do. We're working on it."

The man hummed. "They're all reacting differently, I guess. The younger ones seem better off."

"Their first few months are critical, developmentally. The more of that time they spend under those devices..."

"...Yeah."

Cumulus wiggled its legs in the air, then squeaked happily when she ran a thumb across the bottoms of its paws. "Tai?"

"Mm?"

"Are you sure, about the new teaching post? We can find someone else."

"Nah." The man got up and stretched. "I liked teaching at our little bootleg Dragonry, and I think it does me good being around Qrow and the girls. They can tell, too, which means they'll try to stay home if I don't go with them. Besides..." He glanced at Cumulus. "I think it helps. Having something else to take care of."

Her hands stilled. It craned its neck to lick the tips of her fingers.

The man turned to go, but before he walked away he glanced over his shoulder and said, "Glynda? Don't forget to take care of yourself, too."

She nodded once. The motion was jerky. "The same to you."

"Yeah, well. I've got lots of people reminding me."

* * *

**"It licked her fingers. They smelled like leather, not latex. Strange, but good."**

**hhhh sometimes i look at a line out of context and i... regret.**


	116. Wings

**Hello everyone! Happy Friday, and I hope people are doing okay and keeping occupied as much as they can!**

** Also, holy crap it's the last chapter. ****Hhhh. Finishing something this long always feels super weird. Doesn't help that I'm a bit sleep-deprived and incoherent, so... ajlskdfjlksdj enjoy!**

* * *

**116\. Wings**

* * *

It was time. It was _past _time.

Raven had stayed until the hybrids were all freed. She'd stayed until they settled into temporary homes in the burnt-out headquarters building. Then she'd waited even longer, until they were shipped off to Beacon or to Atlas. There was nothing left for her to do.

So why was Phoenix being so _difficult?_

"Come on," she snapped. "We can't keep the tribe here any longer. They don't trust this place, and neither do I."

"Nn." Phoenix sat down and pointedly ignored her.

"Our forests are probably teeming with Grimm by now." Raven gave Phoenix a hard shove that didn't budge her an inch. "Now get up."

"Izz it," Phoenix said mulishly.

"Is it _what?"_

"No. _Izz-it."_

"I can't tell what you're saying."

Phoenix gave her an unimpressed look.

Raven grimaced. "Fine. _Fine._ We'll visit. _Occasionally."_

Phoenix preened.

"You can't seriously be telling me you like it in the kingdoms."

"Nno. 'Ang."

Damn it. "She doesn't want anything to do with us," Raven reminded Phoenix, as she gave her another tug. This time the dragon got to her feet and followed.

"Does," Phoenix insisted. She balked again when Raven tried to get on her back, pushing her away with her nose. "Bye. Ssay bye!"

"Ugh."

Raven hoped Tai would be too busy with the last of the hybrids, but when she went looking she found him sitting on a bench between Yang and Ruby, watching the sunrise. So she tried the next best thing, and cut straight to the point in the hopes of getting this over with as quickly as possible.

"We're leaving."

Phoenix was having none of it. She purred and rubbed her nose against Tai's chest, then licked the side of Yang's face and sniffed at Ruby's hair. Raven watched it all and swallowed the odd lump in her throat.

"Izz-it," Phoenix promised.

Tai patted her nose. "We know you'll try," he said, glancing at Raven.

She walked away and Phoenix had to follow, trotting at her heels and muttering, "Izz-it," one last time. Raven nodded, knowing full-well the meddlesome creature would drag her back to Vale by the scruff if she tried to get out of it. She'd taken to Yang so quickly, always purring and nuzzling her like she was a hatchling rather than a human teenager.

Raven's fists clenched. She pushed through a group of riders, the ones who had agreed to take on the hybrids. Most were veterans who had lost their dragons. A few still had their partners, and had decided to adopt one together. Some were completely new faces, jumping blindly into the task of raising the dragonets.

It made her skin crawl. Phoenix had been one thing, but _that? _There wasn't a professor in the world who knew any more than they did about the hybrids. How could they possibly trust themselves with that? How could they be sure they wouldn't ruin something so small?

* * *

Ghira always used to say it was a sign of a great compromise when everyone involved was bitterly unhappy with the result. That might make this the single greatest compromise Sienna had ever seen—even Blake, who seemed to be the only one who didn't find General Ironwood's suggestion either cruel or pathetically lenient, was clearly uncomfortable with the whole ordeal.

To be fair, there had been quite a lot of people calling for the heads of everyone who had been in the White Fang. Including Jacques Schnee—though after his own children tried to have him arrested for funding Arthur Watts, no one was inclined to take him very seriously. Instead, Sienna and her people were on probation, which was more than she had dared hope for.

And, incidentally, a lot _more _than Jacques would be facing. Legally, anyway. Sienna had the sense that the looks on his daughters' faces didn't bode well for the man, even if he had gotten little more than a slap on the wrist. It had felt distinctly odd to say that she wished them the best of luck and mean it.

Still. It was hardly a shock that the powerful human had escaped justice. But Sienna, the Lieutenant, and the Albains weren't in prison. The decision was made by a slapdash makeshift Council, made up partly of humans and faunus who had been promoted from lower positions in the old government and partly of Riders and dragons. James himself had pointed out that the majority of the harm they had caused had been to dragons, so the four of them were more or less drafted into taking care of the hybrids that still didn't have riders. They were the ones too dangerous and destructive to be safely moved to a Dragonry, or those who weren't strong enough to survive the trip.

The Albains muttered darkly about humans pawning off the worst jobs as usual, but... it seemed right, to Sienna. Like penance.

"Come on." She coaxed another spoonful of mush into the jaws of a silver dragonet. It ate slowly, whimpering whenever it moved. If she was very lucky, it might keep this meal down. After checking to make sure there weren't any holes in her gloves, she stroked the little creature gently. It was beautiful, with sleek shining scales and mirror-bright eyes. Beautiful and doomed.

Sienna left the room a few minutes later with an uncomfortable leaden feeling in the pit of her stomach. It always reminded her too much of the first dragonet she'd thought would be hers—the one that had died within hours, killed by powers she couldn't control.

Flux noticed her mood and bumped her nose against Sienna's palm. Sienna smiled despite the slight sting, and scratched her gently behind the ears. There was one more dragon left, but before she could move further down the hall, a roar from outside made her ears twitch. She sprinted outside, readying herself for a massacre—

It was Brand. He streaked across the courtyard, barking uncontrollably, towards a towering figure that had just come around a corner and up the hill. Sienna didn't have to see him to know who he was. Not when the fire dragon jumped on him and sprawled onto his side, his tail thumping happily against the grass.

Hazel was technically on probation, too, but they hadn't known where he was. He could have just walked away. She'd had a feeling he wouldn't.

She stood there for a long moment, leaning against the wall of the headquarters building and watching Brand roll around in the grass. In all the time she'd spent around him, she'd never imagined he could get better until he'd shown her.

Suddenly she didn't want to watch anymore. She turned away and headed back inside, stopping in front of the final room. There was a thunderous _clang _from inside. She winced and eased the door open. In the center of the enormous space, growling, stood the giant. At some point, someone had suggested calling her Big Bertha, and much to Sienna's chagrin the name had stuck.

Bertha wasn't alone. Willow Schnee stood at her feet, clicking her tongue and holding out a fluffy white towel. After staring at her for a long moment, the giant lowered her head and allowed herself to be groomed.

The woman sneered when Sienna and Flux approached. She ignored it, and dropped a gigantic haunch of beef on the ground. The giant tore into it in a frenzy, spattering blood all over Willow's white coat. After a frigid glare, the Schnee turned on her heel and swept out of the room. Bertha stared after her, crunching noisily on a bone. Flux's ears twitched anxiously.

"How are you feeling today?" Sienna asked, though she knew the giant wouldn't understand her. Even other dragons couldn't communicate with her with much precision. James had compared her to the brood dragons. Whether that was because of whatever Watts had done to make her grow to this size or because she'd spent months under his control, no one knew.

Bertha blinked. Even after several days of looking after her, Sienna couldn't help finding the motion a bit creepy. Her eyes weren't quite in sync, and there were far, far too many of them.

"I see Willow hasn't changed," Sienna went on, her voice dry as she fetched water for the metal tub that sat in one corner of the room. Perhaps that was unfair—she might not have liked the plan to kidnap Whitley, but they had still done it. Except she'd seen the woman sending Blake the same chilly looks.

"Paw," Sienna said, and Flux demonstrated the motion for Bertha. After a little coaxing the giant held out her paw, letting Sienna look at the pads underneath her claws. The scales there tended to get rubbed raw, because there were so many toes crowded together, and it seemed like every other day there was a new infection.

They went through the whole checkup step by step, with Flux showing Bertha what to do and Sienna fighting not to let the sickening sensation in her stomach show in her body language. Her right front leg had shifted out of the socket again, and another tooth had fallen out. Her vision had gone from bad to worse.

When they were finished, Sienna held out a hand. As usual, Bertha snorted and backed up a step, so she left without touching her. Then she leaned against the wall and pressed a hand to her forehead, breathing deeply.

She'd assumed the hybrids would be free, now. And some of them were... but many more would be suffering from the Council's recklessness for the rest of their lives.

The White Fang hybrids were all perfectly healthy. Because... _because..._

Footsteps came around a corner and stopped abruptly. Sienna opened her eyes and felt her insides twist into a knot. Even Jacques Schnee couldn't fill her with so much dread just by walking past—but Pyrrha Nikos could.

"I'm sorry," she blurted. "I just came with some toys for them." She held up a bag between them, as if to put up a barrier.

Sienna nodded stiffly and made to walk past her. But Flux walked over to greet the human, and Pyrrha paused to pat her nose. It made her bristle, and that made her hate herself just a little.

Pyrrha cleared her throat. "It's good to see you here. Ilia says you're good with them."

It felt pathetic, to be a grown woman hating a teenager, but Sienna couldn't seem to stop.

"You know that isn't true," she snapped. "There's no need to remind me."

Green eyes widened, like she couldn't imagine what that was supposed to mean. Maybe she couldn't. That was why things were the way they were, wasn't it? Because she was such a _wonderful _person.

"They trust you. That means something."

"Not all of them."

"Oh." Pyrrha looked down, like she suddenly found the bag of toys fascinating. "That."

"That."

"She does, you know."

"Does _what?"_

"Trust you."

Sienna scoffed.

For the first time she could remember, anger flashed in Pyrrha's eyes. "Changing for the better doesn't erase what you did to her. Of course she doesn't trust you like she would have. Of course she can't go back to you like nothing happened." She glanced at Flux, who watched her with wide eyes and flat ears. "But she trusts you to do better this time. That means a lot."

She walked away before Sienna could muster up a response. Flux whimpered and butted her head against her thigh, and she reached down to pat the hybrid's shoulder. It came up past her waist, now.

"I will," she promised.

* * *

"No," Whitley said flatly, and scratched out the line Weiss was writing. She scowled and stole his pen.

"Do you have a _better _idea?"

"Yes. We're not trying to convince the _public _he shouldn't be heading the SDC. The legal battle over Glacier already did that. We're trying to convince the _board, _and they don't care about dragons."

"That's precisely the problem!"

A knock at the door. Winter walked in, took one look at the small tornado of papers and files, and sighed. "Have either of you packed yet?"

"My things are in Glacier's saddlebags," Whitley said, without looking up from the textbook he was flipping through.

"I'll do it in a moment." Weiss glanced over his shoulder and scoffed. "Are you seriously trying to add up how much lien he spent funding that monster? That's like calculating how many fluid ounces of arsenic a serial killer slipped into the local well! The _quantity _isn't the issue!"

"You have to learn to speak their language, sister. If we can prove it was embezzled, that's checkmate."

"We already proved he was an accessory to everything Watts did, and that didn't even make a dent."

Whitley rolled his eyes. "They already know he's immoral. If you want them to care, show them he's losing them money."

Winter cleared her throat pointedly. "Are you two still planning on leaving for Beacon? In _an hour?"_

"Yes, yes, we're—" Weiss paused. "An hour?"

Whitley blinked and looked at the clock. "Oh."

"Yes. Oh." Winter reached over their heads and closed all the books and folders. "Pack now, start a war with Father later."

In a frantic rush, Weiss gathered up everything she would need in Beacon. She'd gone shopping a few days ago for the basics—shampoo, toothpaste, everything she'd just been borrowing from Atlas Dragonry and missing horribly all the time they were stranded in the wilds. It felt odd to be shoving binders and notebook paper and _pens _into her luggage.

Stranger still to have spent the past several hours working with Whitley. It was a nice kind of strange, though. She paused, weighing a stapler in her hands, and said, "Thank you. For helping me with this, that is."

He shrugged. "I've spent my whole life preparing to take over. It's what I would have done eventually... just much more aggressive."

"Still." That was true of Winter, too, but she wanted nothing to do with the company. Weiss could understand that—part of her wanted to throw it away, along with all the pain and fear it represented. But she'd promised herself a long time ago to make it hers, and to bring back the company her grandfather had built. The one that had acted responsibly, both on the executive level and... and in research and development.

She dropped the stapler.

"Weiss?"

"I have an idea," she blurted. "Come on. We need to talk to Pietro."

"Who?"

She grabbed Whitley by the hand and pulled him in her wake. "Weiss! Ugh. Just _once _it might be nice for someone to explain themselves before dragging me around!"

Pietro was in his lab, poring over a line of test tubes. He'd taken saliva samples from all the hybrids who would let him, and from what Penny had said he was hoping to reverse-engineer the formulas that way. It would give them a place to start, but if they _really _wanted to bring the hybrids back ethically, he'd need a lot more resources than Ironwood could give him.

The door was open, so Weiss knocked on the frame. "Doctor Polendina?"

"Hm?" He turned and broke into a wide smile. "Ah, Miss Schnee!" Then, when Whitley came into view, "And young Mister Schnee."

"Hello," Whitley said. "Who are you?"

"Whitley," Weiss hissed under her breath.

"If you didn't want me to ask, you should have told me."

"He's the one who built Penny," Weiss said quickly, "and he'll be in charge of bringing back the hybrids."

"Er, yes." Pietro's brow furrowed. "And you... aren't you supposed to be on your way to Beacon?"

"Yes, but—!" Weiss took a deep breath and looked at Whitley. "We need to convince the board to drop Father, right? And we can do that by proving he acted against the company's best interest, but there's another angle we haven't considered. Showing that we can make things _better _without him."

Whitley stared at her. "So?"

"So, the SDC is on the verge of losing its injection contracts with all the major Dragonries—and Pietro has to rely on Ironwood for funding, which is already stretched thin enough as it is dealing with the recent Grimm surge."

Weiss turned to Pietro. "Sir... what if we offered you a position as the head of research and development? You'd have access to whatever resources you needed, and we could get the company away from our Father before he has the chance to find another Watts. He wants patents for new dragons, _badly, _and if we don't do something about him he's going to treat it as a competition between him and whoever else is researching the hybrids."

Whitley blinked. "That's... actually not a terrible idea."

"Thank you for your _overwhelming _support."

Pietro hummed thoughtfully. "It _is _tempting. At this rate we'll be hard-pressed to work out what went into the hybrids already hatched within the next few decades. But I don't know about having such strong ties to the SDC."

"We'll make sure to keep your research free of obstructions—" Weiss started to say, then cut off with a glare when Whitley elbowed her.

"Honestly, Weiss," he scoffed. "This is not the time to be using the honor system." Then, to Pietro, "We'll have to work out some kind of contract that will be agreeable to both parties, and make sure it includes Father's resignation and your autonomy. Our best bet is probably to have you as a semi-independent contractor, but the general public will balk at that if we don't make it clear that we're to be held accountable if you turn out to be a serial killer."

_"Whitley."_

"What? He's not a serial killer and we're not planning on hoarding dragon patents, but it's not as if someone who doesn't _know _us will trust that."

Pietro chuckled. "You two are going to make an interesting team, aren't you?"

Weiss was already starting to miss the Grimm. And, much more than that...

"Thank you, Doctor Polendina. We'll keep in touch—but, um, we _are _actually supposed to be on our way to Beacon right now."

"Of course." He smiled. "I look forward to working with you."

They made a mad dash for the courtyard. Weiss left behind a few things she'd planned to pack, like the stapler, but all of a sudden she couldn't stand the thought of delaying even another second to get them. Only one thing was important enough to delay their departure—a tiny passenger that crawled in under her coat.

In five minutes, they were standing in the destroyed courtyard outside the former Council Headquarters. In fifteen, she was in the air with her team, and Glacier and Ragnar, on the way back to Beacon. And in four hours, they were circling overhead. Nostalgia hit Weiss like a ton of bricks.

"It looks the same," Blake murmured, as the four of them dismounted on Beacon's wide, sweeping lawns.

Weiss shivered, only partly because of the hatchling she was coaxing out of her jacket. She was the same one that Watts had brought with him, the one with the aura of killing cold. It turned out she could turn it _down, _but not _off,_ and carrying her had felt like holding a lump of ice against her chest. Weiss suspected that might be why Ironwood hadn't been able to find a rider for her yet.

She hopped free and paced around with her nose in the air. The grass around her went stiff and brittle, and cracked under her paws as she raced off towards the main building. Three more soon leaped down from her teammates' arms and followed her. Weiss stared at the distant throng of dragons and riders, elementals and hybrids, fully grown dragons and tiny hatchlings all racing around the campus together.

It really did look the same. Different faces, different dragons, even _more _chaos, which Weiss hadn't thought was possible... but the same feeling in the air.

A series of thumps heralded the arrival of JNPR and SSSN. "Is it just me," Sun said, "or is this weird?"

Weiss made a face. "It's definitely not just you."

It had only been a few months, but it felt like a lifetime ago that she'd last walked across this field. There was the cliff, and the endless sea of the Emerald forest, serene and unchanged. The last time she'd seen them like this had been during their frantic midnight flight.

Weiss tried to sneak a surreptitious glance at Pyrrha without her noticing, to make sure she was doing alright. Ten other people tried the same thing at the same time, which ruined any chance of stealth.

Pyrrha sighed. "Let's just find Prof—um, Dragonmaster Goodwitch?"

None of them really knew what to call her, now. She was handling all the administrative tasks a Dragonmaster normally would—because, "Someone has to do it, and it certainly won't be Qrow,"—but Ragnar was just as much a part of decision making for the Dragonry as she was. Not to mention, she was also enrolled as a student while training Cumulus.

Weiss was even less certain of her own status, right now. They were still technically first years, but it wouldn't make much sense for them to go back to learning how to take off from various ramps when they'd already been flying in combat for months. Not to mention that there were far more dragons and riders this year than was normal for Beacon, which meant Professor Goodwitch had asked them to pitch in occasionally to help with teaching the hybrids.

It was going to be a _mess,_ and that wasn't even getting into the upcoming fight over the SDC. Part of her was almost nostalgic for their days in the woods. But there was something electrifying about it, too—after all this time putting their sweat and blood into keeping things from getting worse, they could finally start making the world _better _instead.

* * *

Tai stood at the front of a massive room, staring out at a sea of expectant faces. The silence stretched.

God, why had he thought this was a good idea? He could barely get out of bed these days, why had he promised to _teach?_

Tempest snorted and pressed her nose against his back. At the same time, a student near the back of the room gave him a thumbs-up. He was one of the four that had come to learn from Tai and Qrow, when Beacon was still under the Council's control. The boy with the earth dragon. The one Quake had liked.

Tai took a deep breath and said, "So. This is normally when I'd start you all out with a nice, simple earth-style obstacle course. But, uh..."

He glanced around the room, his eyes passing from dragon to dragon. One was an earth and water hybrid almost as big as Tempest, for whom the usual obstacle course would be utterly trivial. Another was earth and fire, hatched just yesterday from the clutch of eggs that had been in Watts' lab, and much too small to handle an ordinary lesson. No two were alike.

"Yeah." Tai mustered up a wry grin. "We're gonna have to improvise. So! Let's start off with some simple commands, just to get used to working together in class. Everybody stand about ten feet away from your partner, and practice calling them to you."

He leaned against Tempest's shoulder to watch, satisfied, until he noticed a pair of hybrids standing off to one side, watching him with their heads cocked. Neither seemed to have a rider. One, an earth and wind hybrid, sat in the middle of the room. Both his left legs were missing below the knee. The other didn't even seem like she was supposed to be in here—she was a fire and lightning mix, Tai was pretty sure. She certainly had the slitted eyes.

"Uh..."

The little one squeaked.

The big one huffed out a breath and struggled painfully to his feet. A pair of makeshift prosthetics were attached to his stumps, and he wobbled slowly over to his... partner? Then he sat down heavily, panting, and the little one chirped and licked his nose. Then she trotted away, her tail twitching, and waited.

He barked. She scrambled over and jumped on his back, overbalancing him and sending them both toppling in a heap.

"Great. Well. Carry on," Tai said awkwardly, giving each of them a pat on the head. He winced slightly when he touched the fire and lightning hybrid—she wasn't quite hot enough to burn, but it was close.

From there he circled around to the back of the room, where he found Tumbleweed sitting alone. "I guess this is pretty old news for you, huh?" Tai said. The pit dragon bobbed his head.

At a glance, the big earth and water hybrid seemed like he was having some trouble with the basic commands. But Tai noticed his old student and his hatchling were both looking bored. "Why don't you keep that one entertained?" he suggested, giving Tumbleweed a pat on the shoulder. His tail perked up and he ambled over. Within minutes he and the little one were play-fighting, with Tumbleweed falling dramatically to the floor whenever he was 'defeated'.

The lesson went on like that. Tai would give the whole group something to do, then find the ones who were struggling or bored and pair them off so that they could get the most out of the lesson. He made a mental note to talk to Glynda later about sorting the hybrids by age rather than element, at least when they weren't working directly with their powers.

By the time they finished he was exhausted and sweaty, and strangely satisfied. When he opened the door to the classroom, he almost tripped over Ruby and Yang.

"Dad!" Ruby jumped on him, and startled a laugh out of him for the first time in almost a week.

"Hey, kiddo."

"Sorry we're a little late," Yang added. "How was your first class?"

"Weird," he admitted. "Hard to figure out what to do with a group that's got hatchlings _and_ old veterans in it."

Ruby grinned nervously. "Heh, yeah. Wish me luck?"

Tai blinked. "You're teaching?"

"Sorta. Me and Ren and Scarlet are doing a group meeting thing after classes. There's a lot of hybrids that have disabilities from hatching, or the battle. We thought it would be good to have a group where they can learn how to work with them."

"Plus, now we can get them gear that would help," Yang added. "Like goggles for Nimbus."

Tai thought of the young hybrid struggling with the two prosthetics. If he could have access to something like what James had...

He wrapped an arm around each of his daughters and hugged them. "I'm so proud of you two."

Ruby squirmed. Yang rested her chin on his shoulder and said, "We're proud of you too, dad."

A shadow fell over them, as Tempest coiled up right there in the hallway and purred against their backs. Tai drew back and wiped his eyes. "Alright," he said brightly, though there was a lump in his throat. "Let's get the heck out of the way before the little rascals start climbing over us."

* * *

Storm had thought this new group would be a lot like their classes—maybe with older dragons coming around and talking to them, and giving them exercises and things to do. Ruby said that was what it would be like, eventually, but today the main thing was finding dragons that would need things like goggles, or prosthetics, or even surgery, and getting measurements and things like that. Which meant it was a little bit like the doctor's appointments she'd been going to every so often since the Council had fallen, to check on her wing. Except that there were dozens of dragons around and only a few of the doctors, so most of their time was spent playing with each other.

She bounded up to Tallow and tackled him onto the grass, yelping when he rolled onto her tail. He was _heavy,_ now. He barked and squirmed around on his back, purring and sniffing the grass.

"Are you feeling okay?" Storm asked him, when he sneezed and let out a little puff of fire. He purred some more and wiggled his legs until Ruby walked over and scratched his belly. That was as close to a yes as she was going to get—he hadn't been able to talk before, and the devices definitely didn't help. Some of the grown hybrids could still only chirp and squeak like hatchlings, even though they were bigger than her.

She moved on when Tallow snapped playfully at a nearby hybrid, and the two of them started wrestling. Most of the group seemed happy, even the ones who still hadn't found riders, or had decided they didn't want them. Dusk bobbed her head at her as she passed. Beside her, Diver caught a small hybrid under the belly before he could fall over.

Storm caught a flash of movement and turned to find a wind dragon about her age, shuffling his wings and inching closer to the group. She squinted at his rider, who looked oddly familiar...

She leaned out from behind his shoulder, so that her face and hat came into view. It was May—Storm hadn't realized they'd let her come back to Vale. She barked a greeting. The dragon perked up and raced over, his wings flaring on either side. She winced at the sight of the joints bending in ways they _definitely _shouldn't, scared that they might break if he kept moving so fast.

Finally he reached her and sat down heavily on his haunches, breathing hard. "Hi," he said. "I'm Flurry."

His rider stayed hidden behind him.

"Hey there!" Ruby said, giving him a pat on the neck. "Are you new?"

"Um." May poked her head around his shoulder. "Hi."

"Oh. Hey!" Ruby's eyes widened. She glanced over her shoulder—but Ragnar wasn't there. He'd visited in the beginning, but had to leave soon after. Maybe this was why. "Are you staying in Beacon now?"

May shook her head frantically. "No! No. I'm taking a shuttle back to Atlas tomorrow. I just came out here to meet Flurry." At the sound of his name, he perked up and nuzzled her side. She hugged him around the head and took a deep breath. "It's been a while since..."

Ruby made a pained noise.

"But it's okay!" May winced. "I mean, it will be. Eventually. R-ragnar vouched for me, and I've been, um... pardoned. Mostly. I'm not allowed to carry anymore, but I didn't really want to anyway."

"Y-yeah." Ruby shot Storm a panicked look. She whined.

"So." May shifted from foot to foot. "I, um... they told me I should make an appointment with a doctor, to see what they can do for Flurry. But he doesn't like tight spaces anymore, so they said I should come here to get it done outside."

"Oh, right!" Ruby glanced at his wings. "Sure, we can set that up for you!"

Within minutes, Flurry was being poked and prodded by one of the doctors. It was lucky they didn't need to draw any blood, because he spent the whole appointment eyeing the needles distrustfully.

Later, once the group lesson was over, Ruby patted Storm's neck and said, "Your turn."

She huffed. Storm would much rather have her appointment out in the open like this, and eventually she probably would—but the doctors were only out here for so long, and most of the hybrids wouldn't go anywhere near a lab or anything that looked a little like one. They couldn't even call them doctors without getting everyone's hackles up—though a lot of them weren't, anyway. Technically most of them were in training under field surgeons for dragons out fighting Grimm, or doctors that normally worked on humans, since the sudden surge of hybrids combined with the new laws about caring for injured or handicapped dragons meant there was suddenly a lot more demand for them.

Anyway, Storm _could _go to see them in their labs, so that was what she had to do. She grumbled under her breath as she padded into the large room in the infirmary that was set up for dragon patients. Apparently it was easier for them to work in here—something about keeping things sterile, which seemed to mean lots of white walls and nasty chemical smells.

"Hello again, Storm."

Her ears, which had been pinned flat against her skull, relaxed slightly. These doctors were mostly nice, at least, and this one offered her a treat to chew on while they examined her wing.

"You know the drill. Let me know as soon as you feel any pain." Hands curled under her wing, lifting it higher and higher. Storm's tail started to twitch. She hated this part, and the stabbing pain that always ran from the joint all the way to her wingtip. So she sat, waiting, her ears getting flatter and flatter as she braced herself...

The doctor stopped lifting. "Still comfortable?"

Storm barked. Why had they stopped in the middle this time?

"Alright. Why don't you try lifting it now?"

She hesitated, remembering all the times she'd accidentally tried to flare her wings on instinct, and the horrible pain that had come after. Slowly, gingerly, she twitched her bad wing.

Nothing happened.

She lifted it partway, so that the sling wasn't supporting it anymore. Still no pain.

"That's good, that's _very _good." The doctor picked up a huge pair of scissors, and Storm balked. "Easy, easy!" They put the scissors down. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you first—I'm going to cut the sling off now, alright? You don't need it anymore."

Storm stared at the doctor. They reached for the scissors again, and this time she let them approach and start clipping away at the sling. It had been there for so long, now, she hardly remembered what it had felt like not to have something tied around her like that. Ruby watched, bouncing up and down on the tips of her toes, as the last of the stiff fabric fell away.

"Alright. Let's see that beauty, shall we?"

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. Her wing twitched and unfurled partway, and she felt the first twinge of pain. Not the stabbing kind she was used to, though—more like when they'd been flying with weights and her chest would ache afterwards.

"A little stiffness is normal," the doctor assured her. "Keep going until you feel a sharp pain."

Her left wing stretched out until it brushed the far wall. Fully extended, the light above shone through the membranes and cast a dappled half-shadow on the floor. Ruby squealed and threw herself at Storm's neck, burying her face in her scales.

The doctor peeled off their gloves and stepped back. "I'd say it's time to start reconditioning it."

"Like with flying?" Ruby burst out, her eyes huge with excitement. Storm's ears perked up. Surely that wasn't what they meant... right?

They narrowed their eyes. _"Gentle _flying. No fancy tricks just yet, and no rider. But the wound's healed enough that you won't reopen it whenever you flap the wing, which means now is the crucial time for you to make sure you're stretching the muscles. I'll give you some exercises to help with flexibility, but nothing's going to be as important as flight."

Ruby flailed her hands. "Oh my gosh! We're gonna—let's go do that! Right now!"

Without even glancing up from the chart they were holding, the doctor reached out and grabbed her by the back of her jacket. "In a moment. I need to actually give you those exercises first."

Five endless minutes later, the pair of them came tearing out of the infirmary, barking and whooping and roaring and laughing until they were both breathless. Storm would have taken off right then, if the doctor hadn't warned them to start out on the ramps. Something about the strain of takeoff, Storm hadn't been paying attention.

She galloped around a corner, almost bowling over Harpy and startling the rest of team JNPR.

"We're cleared!" Ruby shouted. It took a second for it to register, but a second later Jaune let out a delighted cheer and all four of them started running alongside Storm. The commotion drew SSSN's attention a moment later. Sun stood up in Huo's saddle, hollering at the top of his lungs.

"What's going on?!" Pit poked his head out of the earth stable, his head twisting back and forth like he was looking for a threat. Storm dashed up to him and grabbed him by the scruff, tugging him bodily out into the open air. Jade followed, warbling in alarm. Fang was only a few dozen feet away in the fire stable, and ambled out with his eyes gummed partway shut.

"I was sleeping," he grumbled. "What's—"

"I'm cleared!" Storm jumped on him, then leaped off. She flared her wings to glide back to the ground. Her heart skipped as the wind caught her for just a second, and without another backwards glance she set off in a dead sprint, right towards the ramps.

Specter was halfway between the school and the fields, chatting with Glacier and Steele. He looked up at all the noise, his head fins ruffling up in fear. Then his eyes went wide as Storm spread out her wings and let them trail behind her, cutting through the wind and making a wonderful whistling sound. He hopped from foot to foot, too excited to get his paws underneath him, then came bounding at her side, barking up a frenzy.

Her heart was pounding when they finally made it to the ramps. Storm locked her eyes on the nearest one, her back legs tensing. She shot up the grassy slope. There was a flicker of fear—what if she didn't remember how to do it? What if she fell and hurt herself even worse?

But the end of the ramp came up before she could think, and it was like no time had passed. Her wings swept up, her hind legs pushed down, and she hurled herself into the wind.

Time seemed to slow, and all the noise and chaos of the ground fell away. She savored the sharp _snap _of air filling her wings. The sudden feeling of weightlessness as she reached the peak of her jump. Even the slight twinge of pain on her first downstroke, as Beacon Dragonry shrank beneath her. Her eyes fluttered closed.

There came a triumphant cry from just beside her. When she looked, Ruby was standing up in Jade's saddle, waving both arms and shouting into the wind. Storm called back, dipping into a wide turn that sent her sweeping past Specter and Fang, then ducked under Pit's outstretched wings.

Huo and Harpy dove playfully at her. She darted between them, sailed over Guang and Nimbus, then flew wingtip-to-wingtip with Twiggy. Nymph sped past her, showing her a thermal that carried them both high into the air. Freya and Zircon followed, spiraling around her and Jade as they struck out over the Dragonry.

Storm could see everything from up here. Hybrids playing on the wide lawns, Ragnar perched at the top of the tower, even a few older students flying over the Emerald Forest. Suddenly it was all real—their flight from Beacon, Cinder's betrayal, the final fight with the Council. The worry and fear of months of running and hiding fell away, bit by bit, leaving her as light as the wisps of cloud that passed beneath her.

She turned her head, and met Ruby's shining eyes. Her heart swelled. Tomorrow had become such a scary thing, once Beacon fell—but somehow all those tomorrows had gotten them here. Now tomorrow meant more Riders to bond with the lost hybrids, more hatchlings born into a world that would never cull them, more doctors learning to take care of dragons even when they couldn't fight Grimm anymore.

Tomorrow Storm would fly again, and the next day and the next until she was strong enough to carry Ruby again. And it was still unknown, still a little scary... but more than anything, it was hopeful. She couldn't wait to get started.


End file.
